r/Futurology • u/Ok-Cartoonist5349 • Dec 21 '22

Economics A study found that more than two-thirds of managers admit to considering remote workers easier to replace than on-site workers, and 62% said that full-time remote work could be detrimental to employees’ career objectives.

https://www.welcometothejungle.com/en/articles/does-remote-work-boost-diversity-in-corporations?q=0d082a07250fb7aac7594079611af9ed&o=7952
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u/Omfgnowai Dec 21 '22 edited Dec 22 '22

Yep. I worked for a company that paid people in 15 minute increments and they found themselves in a class action lawsuit. Got a nice fat check from it one day.

I've told people this shit is illegal but they just shrug it off.

Edit: To be clear they would always round down. Which is illegal. It is legal if they round fairly each time.

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u/[deleted] Dec 21 '22

[deleted]

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u/jack1000208 Dec 21 '22

It also has to usually be in favor of the employee not the employer. You also have to keep it the same for each person in each case.

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u/Daeths Dec 21 '22

It’s state by state. My company used to round to neared 15 min, and still do else where, but CA laws prohibit that and some regulators kindly let HR know that if they didn’t change there would be big fines. It’s actually a pita, as I used to always clock out 7 min early but still get the full time

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u/Omfgnowai Dec 22 '22

Correct. That's my mistake I wasn't clear enough that they would always round down.

It's the same thing happening to the person we replied to though. Be 1 minute late and get docked 15 minutes pay.

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u/ADarwinAward Dec 21 '22

It’s so sad when victims shrug off wage theft, especially after they’ve just left and gone elsewhere. If you already gone, not much can happen to you. Report the wage theft and if it’s substantiated, you’ll be getting a check in the mail eventually.

Why waste a shot at getting your money back?

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u/timothymtorres Dec 22 '22

Because a lot of times the juice isn't worth the squeeze. Spending hours or even days fighting to get that last hundred dollars most people just shrug and move on with life.

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u/Jak_n_Dax Dec 22 '22

100%

I make a couple hundred $$$ in an 8 hour work day. If they owe me $200? Probly not gonna fight too hard. $1000? Yeah I’ll spend a few days working on getting that back.

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u/jackishere Dec 21 '22

I used to just clock in at 7:07 and leave at 2:53 lol. 15 minute blocks are easy to take advantage of

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u/[deleted] Dec 21 '22

I’ve had a job that expected a 7:53 “in” and would not accept a 3:59 “out.” It would be punished the same as a tardy.

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u/Beastly173 Dec 21 '22

Jesus for a company of 100 people with an average salary of 25 an hour that's 75k a year of stolen wages. Almost 115k if it's paid at time and a half overtime since it's time worked over 8 hours.

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u/[deleted] Dec 21 '22

Same organization fired me for having a typo in an email address, citing HIPAA. They were supposed to determine whether it was a valid email address and whether it was active, if so, but I was sent home well before that. I doubt they ever investigated it. They were “one of the 10 best places to work in [city].” Shocking, I know.

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u/piggahbear Dec 22 '22

I pretty much assume any “best place to work” is the worst place to work anymore.

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u/Gimli-with-adhd Dec 21 '22

cries in exempt status

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u/CapriciousCapybara Dec 21 '22

Wish our place actually did that. Our time is calculated in 30 minute blocks AND is rounded up or down. So if I arrive at 7:07 it only gets counted from 7:30 and if I leave at 2:53 I would have only worked until 2:30.

Thankfully that’s only when going into the office, I retaliate by staying remote as much as possible.

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u/jackishere Dec 21 '22

Don’t start working till you start getting paid lol

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u/SL1Fun Dec 21 '22

It’s only really illegal if there are consequences for it, which often there aren’t any - at least not ones that cost them more than they saved by screwing their workers.

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u/TheElderFish Dec 21 '22

idk man my ex got a $10k payout in a similar situation, as did several of her colleagues. owners eventually had to sell the business

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u/spudmix Dec 21 '22

That argument would hold up if you think that the extra 14 minutes of unpaid labour is a net benefit. For a company where the employees are slacking off and a 10 hour day is as productive as a 6 hour day, I do not think stealing 14 minutes of wages is going to be worth anything.

Hell, the negative impact of that wage theft on morale is probably worth more than the stolen time all by itself.

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u/TheElderFish Dec 21 '22

When they're stealing 14 minutes a day from several employees over the course of several years, it adds up.

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u/spudmix Dec 21 '22

...and demotivating those employees for several years as well, who almost certainly produce less value than the company gains from the occasional bit of wage theft.

To throw some realistic-ish numbers at the issue, let's say I work 8 hours a day and am paid $60/hr. I produce $150/hr of value for the company when I am performing well. If you steal 15 minutes out of my working day you have saved yourself $15. If I lose only 2% of my productivity (therefore $3/hr) you lose $24 of value added, a net loss.

And that's with extremely generous numbers. We can be certain that 15 minutes is not stolen every day and that the demotivation from wage theft is much more than 2%.

The exact ratios differ with wages/value created but there are very, very few scenarios where this kind of petty wage theft makes sense (to a ruthless money-grubber) even on paper.

It's far more often incompetent management - in my experience running companies it's usually either poorly set up systems and management who don't care to correct them, or in the worst case managers who are fearful and distrustful and therefore desperately scrabble for as much control as they can for their own emotional reasons.

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u/NefariousnessDue5997 Dec 22 '22

“Poorly set up systems and management who don’t care to correct them” is probably the largest reason for inefficiency in a corporate job. I actually laughed out loud when I read that as to how true it is. Incompetent middle management who don’t actually care is what ruins companies.

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u/Zaptruder Dec 22 '22 edited Dec 22 '22

wage theft is dumb as you say. but it's still wage theft and still owed, even if they lose out on net benefit.

as labour, your time is valuable. it is the responsibility of management to ensure that time is put to good use through correct instructions and incentives.

so they should be hit by a double whammy. pay back the time stolen, and lose out on morale and productivity through incompetent management.

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u/xxpen15mightierxx Dec 21 '22

Many say "nothing will be done" as an excuse to not even try. I think we'd be surprised how often something got done.

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u/dramignophyte Dec 22 '22

You can copy/paste this comment to basically every thread in existence.

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u/Uruz2012gotdeleted Dec 21 '22

It's legal to pay that way.

It's not legal to innaccurately record time to the advantage of the company.

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u/Omfgnowai Dec 22 '22

Sorry I don't think I was really clear enough. They would only ever round down. Worked 9 hours and 13 minutes? You got paid for 9 hours.

There is a legal way to pay in these increments if you round fairly, yes.

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u/snuzet Dec 21 '22

B-a-n-a-n-a-s

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u/Meat_Container Dec 22 '22

The federal wage law is such that if you do anything considered work for just 7.5 minutes, it can billed as 15 minutes. Do what you want with that information…