Yes, they should be forced to pay for the things normally required of an employer. Including reasonable meals during business travel. The individual employee can choose on their own to be vegan or vegetarian, or to eat meat.
Why should the individual rights of the employee be surpassed by the rights of the powerful employer?
If you mean "rights" in a legal context, nowhere does an employee have a right to be reimbursed. The closest governing law here is fair employment, and this isn't anywhere close to that.
edit: so long as work-related expenses doesn't sum out to a minimum wage violation
I meant it in the sense of the right to choose something as basic as what they eat while traveling.
This is an insane overreach of the employer/employee relationship, and the only reason it is getting a pass here is because the "right" kind of politics are behind it.
They will feel the full effects of their decisions, whatever those may be. I suspect they will not be large. I certainly can’t be arsed to care about this and I don’t see why you’d exert effort to “make sure” of anything here.
You should withdraw this personal attack as it is not in keeping with the ethos of HN with which you agreed to abide.
You will note that my statement was carefully neutral and did not endorse either side of the issue. WeWork also carefully did not use "blood" as a reason for their policy, instead describing it as a global warming/emissions related measure.
In any case, I am more in favor of people not doing numerically and scientifically unsupportable things to folks who work for them.
> Should we force WeWork leadership, despite their rights to hold moral positions, to pay for something they don't want to pay for?
I'm pretty sure this is the exact argument by social conservatives when it comes to mandated birth control coverage (not taking a stance simply stating a fact).
Another point, not related to my response, is that non-meat dishes at a restaurant are similarly priced to some meat dishes, like a club sandwich and a salad. So the argument from a price standpoint is moot imo.
I can understand not wanting to do it at company sponsored events but seems wack to not do it for an individual's meal. I think this will promote shaming on employees who eat meat.
> WeWork isn't forcing employees to be vegetarian (it's not like a hiring requirement)
They're making a portion of wages/compensation contingent on eating vegetarian. If someone doesn't want to eat vegetarian when out on business, they have to pay for it themselves, where as a meal costing the exact same but lacking meat would be. I'd understand if it were a company based on vegetarian/vegan products, much like I'd understand a church choosing not to buy health care reimbursing birth control, but this doesn't appear to be that.
That said, I'm less concerned about meat at company events - the company can choose to cater whatever it wants - in much the same way I'd be fine with a friend hosting a party that didn't serve meat, but would consider it a pretty obnoxious faux pas to offer to buy dinner for me, but then ditch the check because I ordered a dish with chicken in it. Sure, I might stay friends with them, but it's a pretty good indicator of what kind of person they are.
> most companies have restrictions and rules surrounding their expensing
These tend to be pretty banal and don't really take a moral stance on whatever the employee's buying - "don't spend more than $x", "don't eat more than x times per day", "fly economy", etc. This would be more akin to "You cannot reimburse food containing Kale", "you cannot reimburse food bought at Olive Garden", "You must fly with Alaska on business trips", and so on. Maybe technically legal, but super obnoxious and arbitrary.
> Should we force WeWork leadership, despite their rights to hold moral positions, to pay for something they don't want to pay for?
Yes, I don't want my employer withholding compensation based on their own morals. See: companies refusing to pay for insurance covering birth control. Also consider hypotheticals where the otherwise secular employer doesn't pay for meals from non-halal/kosher restaurants, or which only stocks raw water in the company fridges, or which only allow employees to expense stays at hotels if they attend a sermon during work hours. Some of those might be illegal, some not (I'm honestly not sure on employment law for most of those) but all are just super obnoxious and disrespectful to their employees.
My employer has enough control over my life already. They definitely shouldn't also punish me financially for having different opinions than them.
To put a point on it: I don't think this particular case should necessarily rise to the level of "illegal", but I do consider it rude to the employees for taking away autonomy and implicitly disrespecting choices the employee makes. It's also overall pretty narcissistic of them to assume they both have the right opinions, and those opinions are so right that they should inflict them on their employees.
At the very least, I'm glad they're advertising this - now I know where not to work.
I really wonder if most critics would feel the same way after spending a week in a slaughter house?
Drastic times require wake up calls. Maybe folks will do some research and learn more about why this company implemented the policy.
If everyone had to slaughter their own meal, I think there would be less criticism...at least more understanding on why consumers are demanding more vegan options. At least watch some videos.
There's the option to stop working for the company too if one feels strongly about it.
Data shows that consumers, especially younger generations are moving forward toward plant-based options. A&W Canada is sold out of the Beyond Burger.
- WeWork isn't forcing employees to be vegetarian (it's not like a hiring requirement)
- most companies have restrictions and rules surrounding their expensing
- WeWork has decided they won't reimburse meat (employees can still buy meat)
Should we force WeWork leadership, despite their rights to hold moral positions, to pay for something they don't want to pay for?