Employees Paying to Work

[TheRook]

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

I have a co-worker who works from home for most of the week, based out of a satelliete office of a major Fortune 500 company. In order to do this, for years she has had a second phone line paid for the company used as a work phone, and a dial-up connection to get into the company's system. Recently, the company got rid of the dial-up connection capability for all of their remote employees, making them have to get a satellite or high-speed internet connection.

However, now the company is closing down the office she is based out of and laying off almost all of the employees, but she was one of the ones they are keeping, and she will be working from home full-time. They have said to her that now because they're closing down the office, they can no longer "justify" paying for the high-speed satellite connection from her house, and she will now have to pay for it every month out of her own pocket! That was bad enough, but now just this week, they told her that they're not even going to pay for the second phone line that she has used as a work line for years, and she needs to disconnect it, and any long-distance calls she needs to make to do her work will need to be done from her own home phone, and they won't even reimburse her for the calls. Not only that, but since she got rid of the work line, the manager and surpervisor have been calling her AT HOME on her HOME PHONE at 6:30 and 7:00 at night!!

She *is* an exempt, salaried employee, but she's not a manager or anything like that where she'd be on-call. She's also not a contractor or an "at will" employee or anything like that. She is a normal full-time employee, and now she has to PAY to work, and use her home phone to conduct work WITHOUT REIMBURSEMENT. Is this illegal?

[jk]

She *is* an exempt, salaried employee, but she's not a manager or anything like that where she'd be on-call.

that has nothing to do with "on call" status. All the utility company guys are "on call" most of the time and the are even non-exempt

She's also not a contractor

ok

or an "at will" employee or anything like that.

Well, if she isn't an at will employee, that means she has a contract. What does her contract say to these issues?

Oh, she really is an at-will employee? Then it doesn;t matter.

She is a normal full-time employee, and now she has to PAY to work, and use her home phone to conduct work WITHOUT REIMBURSEMENT. Is this illegal?

that is why they have tax deductions.

[cbg]

MA is one of only two states that requires an employer to reimburse employees for business related, personal expenses; however, the MA law (unlike the CA law) is limited.

She can contact the AG's office (they function as the DOL in this state) to determine if these particular expenses are reimburseable under MA law.

[jk]

MA is one of only two states that requires an employer to reimburse employees for business related, personal expenses; however, the MA law (unlike the CA law) is limited.

She can contact the AG's office (they function as the DOL in this state) to determine if these particular expenses are reimburseable under MA law.

damn, burned myself on that one.

ok, another sticky on the monitor. It looks like a maple tree now in the middle of summer.

[TheRook]

Kind of sad that even in a forum about something like legal issues, you still have the ones who hang around solely to nitpick perceived inaccuracies in someone's post rather then give the assistance they were asked for....

Thank you, cbg, for at least provideing a response to the issue I was asking about. I'll let my friend know to make that call.

[jk]

I was picking on my own inaccuracies.


I geesh, can;t even criticize myself.

did you notice that the other answers were mine and they were correct?