Union rep cautions employers could use telework to exploit low wage earners
Nearly all of today’s corporate teleworkers are highly skilled, salaried employees. But technology advances coupled with the drive to cut real estate costs has firms such as AT&T considering whether to expand their telework programs to include nonexempt employees in customer service and clerical positions.
The idea has union representatives like Patrick Hunt concerned. A research economist for the Communications Workers of America, Hunt recently spoke out at a hearing on Capital Hill examining telework in the private sector. Hunt cautioned that telework might leave low wage earners open to a variety of employer abuses. Even if low wage earners are paid a few dollars above minimum wage to telework, they could wind up incurring unforeseen costs for phone lines, computers and office furniture, any or all of which could push their pay below the legal minimum. They could potentially be coerced into working overtime without receiving time and a half, suffer physically as a result of substandard office furniture, and be left unprotected if injured on the job.
“We’ve spent 70 years passing labor laws that protect people: the eight-hour day, paid overtime, workplace safety standards. They’ve been enforceable because you’ve had a concentration of workers in once place. You could see the abuses. If we start telecommuting, abuses can occur away from public sight,” Hunt says.
But why is working from home so different? At 5 o’clock can’t you just log off your computer the same way you would in the office?
Not necessarily, Hunt says: “Say you desperately need this job, and it has a quota. The boss says if you don’t meet the quota, you’re going to get fired. If you’re a teleworker, you’d probably work that extra hour, unpaid, to make quota and save your job. If you’re in the office, the boss can either fire you or assign you to work another hour for which you’ll get paid time and a half. And who’s to say the workers in the office are even making quota? You don’t know because you’re isolated.”
There are also health and liability concerns. If there’s a problem with workplace safety in the office, an employee can report it to OSHA and not reveal his name. If there’s a problem at home, say the employee is working at a kitchen table instead of a desk and suffers wrist back, he can call OSHA, but odds are the company will find out who placed the call.
Moreover, what if you trip and hurt yourself on your coffee break while working? Who pays your medical bills, you or the company?
“Workers’ rights have been fought hard for,” Hunt says. “Workers shouldn’t have to give them up because the model has shifted.” His recommendations? Telework must be voluntary, employees should incur no transfer costs, be given ergonomic furniture, and work in the office a day or two per week, so as not to miss training and advancement opportunities. Unless the laws protect the people at the bottom of the economic structure, you’re not going to protect anybody. Only about 10% of wage earners are unionized. Who’s going to protect the rest?”
An AT&T spokesperson says when the 18-month contract extension between management and employees’ two labor unions was negotiated this past May, both sides agreed to consider launching a telework pilot. “We’re very interested in it, but I doubt it will be a prime issue during the next bargaining session. Those will always be job security and money,” he says.
