Employee Paying to Use Company Cell Phone

[DDSA]

My question involves labor and employment law for the state of: Arizona

Not sure if this is the correct area to post this but, I couldn't figure our what area was suitable.

I am an employee of a company. I work out in the field. I'd like to keep the exact type of work I do private but, I'll say it's similar to making deliveries.

As part of my job I am required to enter work progress information into a company owned cell phone. I can also use the cell phone to make business related calls. The company originally stated we are prohibited of using the phone for personal calls but, there are a lot of employee's who do.

The phone contains two software program's in order to facilitate the data to the companies internet server. A similar example would be the hand held unit's being used by UPS or Federal Express driver's which record the driver's delivery attempt's and delivery completion status. The difference with our software is we have many different codes we use which indicates various in field situations during our in field work. For example a certain numeric assignment will represent the data indicating a person no longer resides at the address given, The address provided doesn't exist, The property is vacant. We have about 20 or more different codes we use.

This issue maybe just a moral thing but, I'm trying to determine whether there is any legal basis. As an employee I am required by the company to pay for the phone's usage at $15.00 every 2 weeks $30.00 per month. We have multiple in and out of state locations and have a lot of cell phones. We also have employee's who use the phone's just for company calls but, not for the in field data entry purposes like I do.

I do not know what type of business cell plan the company has for the minutes or the data usage. However, the company has an unknown set minute and data limit threshold set where if I go over this threshold I am charged an overage amount based upon possibly the extra minutes and extra data I used.

If I had my own personal smart phone capable of installing the software and access to the internet I wouldn't be required to pay anything. In my case I only have a personal cell phone for in/out bound unlimited calling. I'm not into text messaging or using the internet with my phone. But, a lot of times I will use my personal phone to call our client's rather than using the company cell phone.

Yes, I do take an employee business deduction on this expense at the end of the year. But, it's quite annoying that I am required to use the phone and also having to pay the company for the use of this phone for company business.

I know it's long post and thank you for reading. Hopefully I can get some peace of mind with some responses received on this issue

[eerelations]

There are no laws prohibiting employers from making these requirements. The only possible illegality would be if your employer was deducting the cell phone charges from your pay without your written consent. However, if you consented to this in writing or your employer is requiring you to pay the charges using some method other than payroll deductions, then your employer is not breaking any laws.

[DDSA]

eerelations

Thank you for reviewing and responding.

Basically, as an employee of this company we have not provided any type of written consent for these payroll deduction's. It is just a mutual agreement as part of our verbal terms of employment.

Essentially we are given two choice's. #1 Use and pay for the company cell phone #2 Use your personal cell phone. We were just told, if you use the company cell phone for business purposes there will be a payroll deduction of the amount stated previously. Any overage charges are just automatically deducted without notice. However, I was told by the company personnel who administrates the cell phone account, usage and phone assignment that the company accountant is/was suppose to provide a list indicating any overage use and the deduction amount. But, this hasn't happened. It's just an automatic deduction.

In short term's. You either pay or hit the highway. We all have accepted the fact this is a moral issue requiring an employee paying for the companies phone for business purposes.

[eerelations]

By choosing to use the company cell phone you have essentially agreed to the payroll deductions. Given that you were presented with an option to avoid payroll deductions, you will have a hard time proving to the DOL that you never consented to them.

Employers aren't legally obliged to provide overage use/deduction amount information.