{"id":1502876,"date":"2022-06-03T17:34:04","date_gmt":"2022-06-03T21:34:04","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/?p=1502876"},"modified":"2022-06-03T17:34:07","modified_gmt":"2022-06-03T21:34:07","slug":"an-amazon-engineer-thinks-the-company-should-have-paid-his-bills-during-work-from-home-his-lawsuit-is-advancing","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/an-amazon-engineer-thinks-the-company-should-have-paid-his-bills-during-work-from-home-his-lawsuit-is-advancing\/","title":{"rendered":"An Amazon Engineer Thinks The Company Should Have Paid His Bills During Work-From-Home. His Lawsuit Is Advancing."},"content":{"rendered":"<aside class=\"mashsb-container mashsb-main mashsb-stretched\"><div class=\"mashsb-box\"><div class=\"mashsb-count mash-medium\" style=\"&quot;\"><div class=\"counts mashsbcount\">34<\/div><span class=\"mashsb-sharetext\">SHARES<\/span><\/div><div class=\"mashsb-buttons\"><a class=\"mashicon-facebook mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/sharer.php?u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.conservativenewsdaily.net%2Fbreaking-news%2Fan-amazon-engineer-thinks-the-company-should-have-paid-his-bills-during-work-from-home-his-lawsuit-is-advancing%2F\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Facebook<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-twitter mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/intent\/tweet?text=&amp;url=https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/?p=1502876&amp;via=ConservNewsDly\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Twitter<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-subscribe mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"#\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Subscribe<\/span><\/a><div class=\"onoffswitch2 mash-medium mashsb-noshadow\" style=\"display:none\"><\/div><\/div>\n            <\/div>\n                <div style=\"clear:both\"><\/div><\/aside>\n            <!-- Share buttons by mashshare.net - Version: 4.0.47--><p>A class-action lawsuit argues that Amazon should pay employees\u2019 work-from-home expenses incurred during the height of COVID-19 \u2014 and a California judge rejected Amazon\u2019s request to dismiss the lawsuit on Wednesday.<\/p>\n<p>David Williams \u2014 a senior software engineer at the e-commerce giant \u2014 \u201csued his employer for refusing to foot his monthly home office expenses,\u201d according to <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theregister.com\/AMP\/2022\/06\/03\/amazon_lawsuit_wfh\/\">The Register<\/a>, \u201con behalf of himself and over 4,000 workers employed in California across 12 locations.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The lawsuit contends that Amazon should expect to pay $50 to $100 per month for electricity and internet costs accrued when the company sent employees home due to the spread of COVID-19. Amazon, however, argued that it is not responsible for the expenses because it sent employees home in reaction to government lockdown orders, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.bloomberg.com\/news\/articles\/2022-06-01\/amazon-workers-close-in-on-trial-to-recoup-work-at-home-expenses#xj4y7vzkg\">Bloomberg<\/a> reported.<\/p>\n<p>In his order rejecting Amazon\u2019s request to dismiss the suit, U.S. District Judge Vince Chhabria said that the firm would not be absolved of liability even if its argument were valid. He referred to California labor law, which says that an employer must \u201cindemnify his or her employee for all necessary expenditures or losses incurred by the employee in direct consequence of the discharge of his or her duties.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>More than two years after COVID-19 sent the United States economy into a recession, millions of Americans are continuing to work from home. As of February 2022, 59% of employees who said they could do their jobs from home were working remotely all or most of the time \u2014 a significant increase from the 23% who did the same before the spread of COVID-19, according to <a href=\"https:\/\/www.pewresearch.org\/social-trends\/2022\/02\/16\/covid-19-pandemic-continues-to-reshape-work-in-america\/\">Pew Research<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>Indeed, many executives are wrestling with the decision to call their employees back into the office. Tesla CEO Elon Musk, for example, told executives this week in an <a href=\"https:\/\/www.dailywire.com\/news\/musk-remote-work-is-no-longer-acceptable-at-tesla\">email<\/a> that \u201cremote work is no longer\u201d acceptable at the electric automaker.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIf there are particularly exceptional contributors for whom this is impossible, I will review and approve those exceptions directly,\u201d he noted, adding that the workplace \u201cmust be a main Tesla office, not a remote branch office unrelated to the job duties, for example being responsible for Fremont factory human relations, but having your office in another state.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Replying to a social media commenter asking for a response to people who think \u201ccoming into work is an antiquated concept,\u201d Musk remarked: \u201cThey should pretend to work somewhere else.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>In the United States, only 22% of employees can work virtually between three and five days a week without decreasing productivity, according to a report from consulting firm <a href=\"https:\/\/www.mckinsey.com\/featured-insights\/future-of-work\/whats-next-for-remote-work-an-analysis-of-2000-tasks-800-jobs-and-nine-countries\">McKinsey &#038; Company<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>Other countries\u2019 legal systems are weighing similar questions about their labor laws in the wake of the lockdowns. When a German man <a href=\"https:\/\/www.dailywire.com\/news\/german-court-rules-that-moving-from-bed-to-home-office-counts-as-commuting-man-gets-workers-comp-for-slipping-down-the-stairs\">fell down the stairs<\/a> and broke his back while moving from his bed to his home office, a court ruled that his journey was \u201cinsured as an activity in the interest of his employer, as a commute to work.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Killian O\u2019Brien, who lectures on German law at University College London, told <a href=\"https:\/\/www.cnn.com\/2021\/12\/10\/success\/wfh-commuting-germany-court\/index.html\">CNN Business<\/a> that firms in the central European nation must prepare for \u201can increased category of activities and events that you can carry out\u2026 that will now be covered,\u201d adding that insurers will likely \u201chave to revisit this ruling often.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>A class-action lawsuit argues that Amazon should pay employees\u2019 work-from-home expenses incurred during the height of COVID-19 \u2014 and a California judge rejected Amazon\u2019s request to dismiss the lawsuit on Wednesday. David Williams \u2014 a senior software engineer at the e-commerce giant \u2014 \u201csued his employer for refusing to foot his monthly home office expenses,\u201d &#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":99,"featured_media":1438799,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mo_disable_npp":"","fifu_image_url":"","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1502876","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1502876","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/99"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1502876"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1502876\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1438799"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1502876"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1502876"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1502876"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}