Suppose there are two employees: Alice and Bob, who do the same job at the same factory. Alice has a 10 minute (20RT) commute, Bob commutes 35 minutes(70RT).
If you’re the owner of the factory, would you compensate them for their commutes? How would you do it?
Who would hire Bob, in that case?
The same company. If they are far from their employees it’s not the employees’ fault.
They hired Bob in the first place, meaning they want his work. Now it’s on company time instead of the people’s time. How much work do people actually do in their 9-5s?
Try not looking at this from a money perspective over a people perspective. Companoes threw fits and anguish at the ideas of 40 hour workweek, weekends, overtime pay, etc, yet here we are! 32 hour work weeks and commute time included on the 8 hours can be next.
So I could move to bumfuck nowhere and get paid to chill out in my car, while my coworkers pick up my slack?
Nope. Enjoy bumfuck nowhere my friend!
That’s a good question and it depends on the job. Office jobs definitely come with variable downtime that can be shifted around.
If you’re doing physical labour, like working in a factory or gardening, there’s a very direct corelation between “time spent at place of work” and “productive time”.