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Comment by lquist | Hacker News Reader

It's also illegal to require employees to use their own devices and not compensate them for that use.

Is that actually illegal? I think it's really crappy, and no company should do it, but I'd love to see where this is codified as illegal.

California passed a law about that I believe. An excerpt from this [1]:

Section 2802 of the California Labor Code requires employers to reimburse employees for expenses “necessarily incurred” with the stated purpose of “prevent[ing] employers from passing their operating expenses on to their employees.” Lest anyone think this issue can be resolved with a waiver of the right to reimbursement, Labor Code section 2804 prohibits waivers of an employee’s rights to reimbursement.

[1] http://www.dlapiper.com/en/us/insights/publications/2014/08/...

Awesome, thanks!

it is unclear. I read an article yesterday saying California had just passed legislation to compensate for it. Obviously, it is pretty unethical, especially if you spend the majority of the day on the phone.

Yep, agree, very unethical, very hostile. Where did you read about the legislation passed?

Hacker News I beleive. I will find a link and post in a few minutes.

One link here: http://www.mondaq.com/unitedstates/x/338164/employment+litig...

Edit 2: It was actually on Reddit. This is the link to Reddit commenting on the computer world article focusing on the same ruling at the appellate level:

http://www.reddit.com/r/law/comments/2f55j2/california_cellp...

Thanks a bunch, great stuff.

It might be illegal but it could be made "legal" if she contractually agreed to it somehow. As in "you provide us with a work sample, this day is an interview day, you are not an employee, yadda, yadda... <sign here>" It seems for the millions in VC funds they probably spent some attorneys who check that out for them.

An individual's contract cannot not invalidate prevailing labor law or collective bargaining agreement. If you do actual work for the company on an interview day, you can sue for unpaid wages.

"do actual work" can be re-interpreted by sleazy lawyering in many ways.

I've had some companies ask me to implement small snippets of code (QuadTree in C++ type stuff) as part of an interview process. Do I have chance of billing them for my time?

The difference between "work" and "work sample for interview purposes" can be muddled that was the point.

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