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

