How Plutocrats have used covid-19 to rip off employees

My wife has a business and for this she has an absolute rule. She never brings anything about the business home, not so much as a piece of paper. She will not discuss business from the home phone. When she is at work she is at work. When she is home she is at home. There is no blending of the two.

The Plutocrats (big business and big tech) have used the covid-19 bioterrorism to force employees to turn their homes into company facilities. In this, they have shifted all facilities costs from the company to the employees. In addition, now You can NEVER leave work. You are at your work location every day and every night, 7 days a week - requiring you literally LIVE at work every day and every night.

The company no longer pays for the property and building for for company facilities - their employees now pay all costs of company facilities.

Their employees not only pay the mortgage/rent of the business location, which the company no longer need pay, but the employees also pay the electricity, water bill, and sewage bills of the now-company's business location. The employees, not company, now pay the property taxes.

The company also no longer has to pay to maintain or fix air conditioning and heat, the plumbing or any other repairs of the company's business locations. The employees, not company, pay to replace worn out carpeting from business operations, and all other former home but now the company's facilities are paid for by the employees - basically requiring employees donate their homes and pay all expenses of the company's business facility to the company as a condition of employment.

The company - all at the employee's expense - have basically taken control of their employees homes and required the employees to pay all company business facilities expenses out of their own pockets - while making it so their employees can never actually leave work and go home - as a new job requirement. If you don't like paying the company's facility costs, then quit - or in other words "FU!" to employees while laughing about it.

Her company was exempt from any covid-19 shutdown orders. But if she were to move all office operations to employees homes at the employees expense this would put well over $100,000 in her pocket - and if long term allowing reducing office space needed a great deal more money saved at employees expense - by instead making the employees provide all business facilities and expenses out of their own pockets.

Requiring employees to pay employers expenses even to the point of having to give the company their homes to use for business - while the employee pays all costs of the now company's facilities - reminds me of share cropping, which was outlawed a long time ago.

Minimally it should be illegal to have as a condition of employment you have to donate your home and pay all expenses for the company's usage without reimbursement for all expenses of any kind including rent/mortgages, property taxes, all utilities and all maintenance. "Give the company your home at your expense or your fired" should be strictly illegal.

For most residential property, this is even illegal as most is zoned strictly for business and it illegal to operate a business out of residential property.

The way the plutocrats have used covid-19 to shift billions and ultimately trillions of dollars into their pockets from low income people is a very, very long list. Requiring employees to covert their homes at the employee's expense for company usage is outrageous and should be prohibited. But then what politician gives a damn what low income employees need or want?

 

Aside from your central point, where is sharecropping illegal in the USA?

 

I stand corrected. It is not illegal.

 

I agree that employers tend to take work at home workers for granted.

Much like stay at home spouses who care for family members got often shortchanged in divorced.

People should at least document work hours, expenses, travel time, etc. That may help as employers try to screw employees as things change.

Don't forget to claim workman's comp claims if you are hurt and if hurt from needed like ladders, even if those supplies and practices are only implied by the boss. Like a urgent request from the boss to make a presentation to be overnighted, and you have an accident going to the office supply store!

There can also if liability to the worker if the bosses equipment or work be damaged at home or elsewhere. A renter's insurance policy will usual include a $100,000 or much more liability insurance if you burn up a expensive equipment.

Never underestimate the effort for an employer to screw an employee, and working at home as an employee is expanding. The big employers have their procedures usually well covered, but smaller employers are sometimes not.

 

Mass telecommuting schemes usually fail in fairly short order. Did before COVID, will during COVID.

 

Curious legal issue. If an employee is hurt in home employment due to neglect of the home - or even on of the children hurt, isn't the home the company work place for which the company is responsible to make THEIR business location safe?

 

In some states, that might be true to be if the directly working on business project.

Many other states, probably not.

Most companies own nothing, everything is leased or by the owners independently, so any section can file bankruptcy. Even tiny businesses like a nail salon "close" down and open up new the next morning, customers don't even notice.

So many companies are so prepared to file for bankruptcy at the drop of a hat, yet they don't need to change a public name or anything, the employee is on their own.

 

Another draw-back of home working is that an employer will realize that he can employ someone in India to do your job for a much lower salary. People need to appreciate the pros and cons of working from home, not just complain about the cons. Most people who have been asked to work from home are not in the low income group

 

your wife is very fortunate. As much as I would like, I think of my business all of time. Things like cash-flow, receivables, increased insurance premiums, marketing, R+D etc. Many times, a call at night is the only time a few of us can speak

The benefits of working from home are many and yes, the reduced need of commercial real estate does reduce OPEX but you'll find that the "savings" will be needed for other items, or price reductions.

I find it questionable that there is an entrepreneur in the home based upon your comments. Anyone who knows what it's like to mortgage your entire life and risk starting a business, going months without salary, wouldn't make a post such as yours.

 

The OP is certainly informative and food for thought. Being semi-retired, I had not considered everything discussed here.

 

I do understand the business continuously being on the mind of an independent small business owner. Yes, this was a problem and yes the time demands are huge. Refusing to bring actual work home was one way she figured to prevent the business from totally consuming parenting and home life.

She did not risk anything to create the business, but it was an unusual situation to long to explain. Due to an exorbitantly wealthy partner the business of virtually unlimited resources and business support for her/their own businesses, it was never a financial risk nor an economic necessity. I agree small business ownership tends to be all consuming and high risk. This is so for every small business owner we know and increasingly was becoming that way for us.

For her/us, the greatest time demand is dealing with the government - and as the business grew exponentially so did the time demands of government. She had to decide was her priority to endlessly pursue more wealthy - or children, husband, home, friends, personal time etc. Increasingly she was living at work day and night - until she realized she had to pick her life priorities - and getting more money wasn't it for an increasingly very lucrative business to being extremely so. This overall lead ot a huge change in our lifestyle going from lower middle class to increasingly extreme profit as if in a continuous money rain pour.

She picked the latter as her priority and drew the line - so shifted to building the business down rapidly rather than always bigger. It is not a typical small business story, other than understanding the massive time and mental demands almost like brain fever. It takes proactively not letting the business eat on you mind every waking minute, which takes a terrible toll on a person's life and their family unless getting that under control proactively.

 

This just comes across as a long winded rant trying to make this out to be more complicated than it rally is. You are trying to make it sound like people are being forced to set up a lumber mill in their garage to do their work, where in reality it just means using current electricity, internet and maybe picking up a cheap desk for work convenience. (yes i'm oversimplifying but the OP overcomplicates so it balances out with a lot of people in between)

I own a business, I bring lots of papers home, I answer phone calls and emails as early as 7am and as late as 10pm, its part of the job. My spouse experiences the same but its not as dramatic as an employee, but she will answer phone calls from fellow workers with questions about how to do X or Y, or to follow up on something she was working on the day before she isn't being taken advantage of, she's just being a productive employee.

I've brought quite a bit more work home this past year due to Covid. I did use the business account to purchase an upgraded scanner and a 2nd laptop so I can be a tad more effective total cost maybe $550, the spare bedroom already had a $99 desk so I was up and running pretty quickly. Prior to covid I would just use my personal laptop for work when necessary and my $59 scanner was fine since it was used maybe 10x a year, where now it gets used 3x a day. I could have skipped the laptop but it became a hassle so I bought one.

If certain employees don't like the work from home situation they are free to search the greater job market for alternatives.

 

An example of time demands, a few days ago the IRS sent a demand for over $450,000 in taxes, penalties and interest for a past. This is not a first.

The last time we took it to tax court - which ended with a petty agreed judgment that instead we were owed about $1500 due to overpayment. This was truly petty to us, a pointless exercise that took at least 100 hours all time considered. So now she goes thru the same wasted time again. That is just one example.

She has had to battle against fines - including one time all the way to Washington DC's agencies #2 man. Regulatory and inspector battles primarily federal from every agency from the DOT, FDA, US Dept of Agriculture, OSHA - on and on and on - for which to this day she has never paid $1 in penalties and fines - but such activities consuming far more time and effort than the business itself.

The routine is the same. The government claims a violation for which each incident is a separate offense. So for the thousands of relevant shipments or actions the maximum for all is into the millions or tens of millions, but they generously offer a non-fault settlement for only $50,000. It's no more than a shakedown since for almost any company the legal fees would far exceed this and the risk being massive.

Fortunately - and too long to explain - she would address it herself - seemingly - with an army of top end lawyers of her partner advising in the background - who charged nothing for these service. The government is so entrenched in this shakedown practice they didn't really know how to deal with a "never surrender, never retreat" business owner so skillfully militant and so counter tactically vicious they couldn't handle - as she massively burned up their time and money.

I could give an example but it would be long. We are in a remote location. That meant the government having to fly in and then drive 2 hours to any of the locations. For one battle, that had to do this nearly a dozen times, there were half a dozen hearing up the ladder, with the government agency ultimately getting $0. After a while, one agency after another do get off her case.

The agencies are used to companies first turning it over to some department and then the legal department of the company - all who try to cajole the G-men as if their long lost army buddy, kissing their ass. They knew how to deal with it when it became a legal fees starve out campaign by the agency. They did not know what to do with a young female owner acting like a petulant child who begins with "you didn't make an appointment so get out and make one" - and if necessary calling the local sheriff ordering them to leave as trespassers - locking them out of the facility - and often saying to the G-people "you can't make me do anything!"

The secret lawyers of the partner absolutely were amazed that she could do what they couldn't because the agencies never deal with this with any company of the size of her's. It was not a small business, but a growing empire. However the business(es) are not incorporated - and only corporations are required to have lawyers. But she didn't want that empire for how it was taking total control of our lives. So increasingly instead she's been shutting down one product line after another and one company after another to just a small fraction of what it was. We are not Scrooge and will not live our lives to just gather more money to have more money.

^ That is NOT a common mom-pop small business story.

 

Just as before, expenses incurred in the process of 'working from home' are considered to be expenses incurred for the business, and therefore should be deductible on your personal taxes.

Part of the offset in working from home is commute expenses such as fuel consumption (not normally paid by a company) car insurance (not normally paid by the company) clothing expenses (do your sweats cost as much as a 3 piece suit?) and all the minor list of things that you don't spend during a normal work day, while you work from home.

A company that has shifted from in-office to work from home doesn't just give up it's lease and facility for a stretch of time. Leases must be paid, property taxes paid regardless if someone is physically there or not. Just like your home real estate taxes: you are going to pay them regardless of where you are working.

Depending on what activity someone is harmed in, normally defined as 'in the standard course of business', it is probable that the company would take responsibility for worker's comp. Injury arising out of your personally owned equipment for tasks not part of the normal course of business would fall under your personal health insurance I would think. Most businesses that require physical labor aren't your standard 'work from home' type businesses because of material and equipment needed to actually complete the work.

So good part of your rant doesn't carry a whole lot of weight, though some of the concerns are hopefully addressed in what I've written above.

 

good summary, you have more patience than I do.

You are likely right about the WC situation, that technically would apply, the risk is pretty low but it still exists, not sure, but the WC carriers should be advised of the change just in case.

 

I wrote a long message as a response - and it was lost by the forum software.

I understand many business owners have the sweatshop viewpoint of "if you don't like how the company treats you, then quit." But those same people are those who rant about how people no longer have "good work ethics." Why should they if employees are only replaceable work animals?

Treating employees unfairly, finding every little way to bleed them, is truly foolish for a business. I could give examples, but will only give one. My wife's business was the largest customer of a bottled water deliver company (distilled water). One day the owner of the company called asking why we cancelled our deliveries - and all his customers have canceled? WHY?!

But no one had canceled. Rather the owner had increasingly been bleeding down his delivery people. Clever ways of a clever creepy boss. Turns out the employees were clever too. They went to a competing company and made a deal for higher pay. A brilliant plan. Who pays attention to who delivers their bottled water - particularly if it is the same delivery person? So all the same delivery people were delivering to the same customers - only for the competitor. The price he paid for ripping off his employees? Lost the company entirely for "payback time."

I know of another much larger company wiped out by middle management taking all designs, vendors and customer lists to a competitor, disgruntled at how the company's owner was treating them and talking down at them.

 

The days of a person working for a company all their life, with insurance and retiring with a small pension, are over. Many companies now are cut-throat towards employees. So why shouldn't employees do the same? Do as little work as possible. Steal anything they can steal. Fake documents if easier. Drive away customers that make work since it doesn't matter 1 penny to them. Approach their job singularly with "what's in it for me?" and "screw the company" - because the company is ripping off and screwing them.

My wife pays nearly double the prevailing wages, a bonus on top of that literally every week, paid holidays, paid vacations, emergency loans, etc. They get Christmas presents and money, fireworks, free delivered lunches etc. If a family or personal crisis requires weeks off, they get it. In return the employees are intensely loyal - because they have every reason to want the business to survive and prosper. Their intense loyalty means they are very efficient and there few new employee costs and problems.

In return, the employees also are intensely loyal in relation to the government (inspectors etc), which can be critical. Inspectors have even complimented us for how our employees know to NEVER answer any inspector's questions with other than "you'll have to talk to the owner, not me." And it is a very pleasant working situation.

Some business owners think they are clever by bleeding their employees of nickels and dimes. But usually the end result is either a sudden death of the company by an employee(s) or death by a million little disloyal and angry employee costs.

Employees should have a strong loyal work ethic. But that has to be earned by the employer. Few companies and businesses win in the long run by treating employees like dirt under the feet of management or the owner.

 

The business canceled ordering for one of the major suppliers due to shifting to home based clerical staff. We calling to place an order, someone needs to answer the phone, not an answering machine. If leaving a message, the call back needs to come fast - not tomorrow. A quote needs to be given now and order placed now, not when the person gets around to it. In a high volume fast paced business, getting back to things causes critical things missed. When one time no one was answering any calls to any company number, enough was enough.

When asked why no more orders? "When your company is back in business, give us a call and we'll consider it."

 

I understand why some employees prefer working from home. For many this included not having to pay for child care. But this makes for not as good an employee or parent. The person is distracted from work because of the kid(s). And the kid(s) is constantly told "not now, I'm busy" - which to a kid is saying "you don't matter to me, my job does."
It wasn't until work from home that it became extremely difficult to place orders - with a huge increase in delivery and billing errors.

 

Many of my friends are working from home now and none are working as many hours as they were when working in the office or lab. Who was looking after that child who is now distracting their parent working at home?

 

When was the last time you knew of an employee sticking with a company through thick and thin? Going above and beyond to make it through the tough times?

Yeah, about the same time that employers started looking at employees as 'expendable', employees were already showing they had no loyalty to the employer.

I've been at the same company for 20 years now. I know my employer has my back, just as I have his, both of us have proven it several times.

 

Times change and failure to adapt leads to extinction. They save on gas and auto insurance. Reduced pollution levels are a side benefit. The disturbing part of your post is where you want government stepping in and interfering in what people already agreed on. The government is the reason people are forced to work from home in the first place.

The separation between work and home is in the mind, not the location.

 

My auto insurance is not based upon where I work. Your's is.

No, the separation between work and home is physical, not psychological, in terms of location.

Yes, the plutocrats profiting from forcing employees to provide and pay for costs of clerical business facilities and surrendering square footage of their home is what they had the government do in their 24/7 endless totalitarian bioterrorism campaign.

 

Auto insurance is based on average mileage. My 2 sons going to college from home got their rates significantly lowered.

The government did the forcing. They have no business interfering in what two people agree on.

People who work in an office take work home with them all the time. Many who work from home clock out both physically and mentally. Location has nothing to do with it. There are many mindfulness practices to help people balance their lives.

I know many people who work from home and many not lucky enough to have that option. While we probably agree on the governments overreach when it comes to lock downs and mandates, many working from home don't want to go back.

Of course, you can push back and demand compensation for your square footage, just make sure you are extremely difficult to replace.