No matter what app it is, if employers require one to be used on a smartphone, they are legally obligated to provide you with a work phone. If they refuse, they are legally obligated to provide reimbursement for your personal mobile plan. This can be as simple as $5 or $10 added monthly to a paycheck, or as detailed as actual usage down to the kilobyte.
Even if it’s as simple as clocking in and out. If they won’t provide a phone or reimburse, they must have some other method to complete the task. Whether it be a computer or paper. Failing that, they are not upholding the law of providing you tools necessary to complete your job. Which means if they terminate you for any of the above under “not able to do your job”, it is retaliation for you requiring them to do their job. You could potentially win a suit against them.
My employer provides us with a “tech allowance” as a bonus every month
It’s not enough to buy a barely functional work laptop, but you can “buy a laptop” through them, and then forfeit the bonus until it’s “paid off”
I’m kinda awful with money, so I pretty much need every cent I can get. That bonus goes towards keeping my head above water in the debt trap I’m in.
So my “work computer” which requires their spyware antivirus to be installed is a virtual machine. It’s been two years and no complaints so far. Great antivirus.
Reimbursement for a mobile plan? If I need to use a special authenticator app to login to my work computer, and the app is fully offline (and I only need to use it at the office where I have Wi-fi anyway, if I needed it, but I don’t), then what does a mobile plan have to do with anything? I could use it on a phone without a SIM card, or a tablet that can’t have one.
My examples are the common scenarios. Apps typically use data. Even if in your case data isn’t used, your employer is still required to provide you with the tools necessary to complete your job. It’s as simple as that.
You said “No matter what app it is” which is the point of my confusion. So you actually meant “apps that use data”, that’s fair enough, thank you for the clarification.
your employer is still required to provide you with the tools necessary to complete your job
Yeah, that’s what I thought, that the employer is required to provide a work phone if they require the usage of an app. But you are saying they can refuse as long as they reimburse data, which doesn’t even help if the app doesn’t use data. How is that “refusal of a legal obligation” working?
they are legally obligated to provide you with a work phone. If they refuse
This is the part that I’m not getting. So are they legally obligated or are they allowed to refuse like you say. It can’t be both ways.
