You’re living in a townhouse as part of an apartment complex. The apartment complex has benefits such as a pool and hot tub, indoor gym, full size basketball court, a library, and a garden. You have 2 other roommate/coworkers, and you have 6 neighbor/coworkers. A Labor neutrality agreement is guaranteed, and both tenant unions and labor unions will be voluntarily recognized.
No.
We tried that with coal mining. Results were disastrous.
Read history.
Read the thread. It’s not a company town.
It’s entirely exactly a company town.
A company town has all of these things?
- Provides housing independently of the job
- Job is paid by the government
- Apartment complex is managed by the people who live there
- Has a Labor neutrality agreement
- Will voluntarily recognize labor and tenant unions
The job providing housing while paying starvaton wages is what makes it a company town.
Forget the official rules. It will get ugly fast.
Sounds lovely, until you and the employer stop being on the same page about the tiniest of things.
Then it starts spiraling into a personal housing security crisis.
And you can forget about thinking of changing jobs any time soon. The moment your 2 weeks end, you’re homeless.
The tenant and labour union stuff sounds nice, but they’re not a magical fix. They can and often are bought and controled. While better than the alternative, they’re not a guarantee of protectedness.
This doesn’t mean the model is dead on arrival. It’s just not one I’d choose. I’d rather have a seperate boss and landlord, thank you very much.
No. Tying my housing security to my employment security only benefits the employer. A worker is allowed to leave whenever they want; a slave isn’t.
Same reason the US doesn’t have universal healthcare.
Understandable position
We tried this before, they were called company towns and they got banned because they’re a horrifically abusive practice.
Imagine living around the same people you work with. Imagine a company that won’t even let you take a piss break having control over your housing situation. Imagine getting fired and having to move out of your apartment the same day.
wouldn’t this have a different (slightly?) outcome if there were actual workers protection legislation? I’m pointing out how the whole ‘fire at will’ BS is flat-out inhumane…
I could see this working in NZ where it’s challenging to sack people unless they’re outright fraudulent or hostile, for example
No because everything will slowly be chipped away from you. There’s not a single country on earth that will be immune to that. $15 an hour 5 years later, 10 years later… having to fight for that raise. Having to deal with moving goalposts to keep your housing. Yall have lost your fucking minds thinking you’re immune to this.
Sure, but why have it in the first place? Better if jobs just pay people enough to afford housing. That gives workers more options.
oh, for sure - actually fixing problems is absolutely better
The broader idea is that the job is paid by the government as part of a program to end homelessness
Then it’s housing that comes with a job, not a job that comes with housing. There’s an important difference.
Never thought of it like that
He who controls things, decides how it’s used.
The apartment is managed by a board of elected residents
Invisible People (YouTube) did a great mini doc on how they provide housing for certain homeless people overseas. I think it was one of the nordics. Worth a watch if you’re interested in homelessness and systems used to solve it elsewhere.
I think this is it: https://youtu.be/0jt_6PBnCJE
That being said (I haven’t watched this one yet): https://youtu.be/GLvK31llklM
Indentured servitude? Company owned housing? What am I, dumb as fuck? Well, I might be dumb but not as fuck.
But i am convinced the younger gens will be fooled by something like this and sign themselves away into slavery again.
Please read the rest of the thread. This isn’t a company town
The problem with accepting a deal like that is that $15/hr isn’t enough to leave you with any real savings at the end of the pay period, so you’re essentially trapped working for the people who provide you housing with no way to dig yourself out of that situation and move on to more normal employment.
When they know they have that much power over you, expect working conditions to be brutal, the hours to be long, and the managers to be unfair and cruel.
Also expect it to get enshittified over time
Depends what your cost of living is, and how good you are at saving.
If it’s located in Lilongwe, congratulations, the cost of decent food is going to be like $2 a day, so if your utilities and security are covered, you’re going to have a considerable disposable income to play with.
Lots of people work for $15 an hour, in the West, and get nothing extra covered. That is a bit of a trap.
Living with strangers? Hell no. Provide me with a studio apartment and then we’ll talk.
since its apartment complex, probably a room , bathroom, small kitchen by yourself? if its sharing a whole apartment(unless you are student) then its really not feasible.
Not for me.
That’s just a company town with more steps.
If I was living on my own in those conditions, I would be fine with it. Although I’d be saving money in case I needed to change jobs/move. If the contract allowed me to pick up the lease after end of employment, that would be especially motivating. I wouldn’t want to live with co-workers, though.
No, the only way I’m living in employer provided housing is if it’s either an extremely remote job, or I get some sort of exceptional benefits from it. I would consider going to Antarctica for a job, or some remote oilfield worksite to be examples of the first one. In either case, free housing is kind of the bar to entry for employers when they want you to go spend months at a time in an utterly remote location.
On the other hand, if some super rich person wanted to hire me as live in staff so they have someone to fillet fish or break down a leg of lamb for them at any time of day, for the right salary and conditions, I wouldn’t necessarily be opposed to it, provided I got my own little private apartment on premises somewhere.
I have a few friends who got out of working as chefs in fine dining restaurants and were hired on as private chefs for rich families in the area. While they aren’t live in positions, they are the level of job I would need to be offered to consider tying my fortunes to my employer to that extent. The one I seeost often, for example, has a pretty decent deal. He is responsible for preparing 3 meals a day for the family he works for, and if they have any functions requiring food, he gets notified well in advance and will do some extra work to cover that. Other than that, his days are his own, to spend as he sees fit.
From knowing him for years, it’s proven incredibly stable and pretty low stress for him. Whenever the family goes on vacation, he gets a vacation too (meaning they deal with their own food in another fashion while they are away), and he was also able to just take off several weeks a year to go bang around Portugal and visit his extended family there. If he had a slight sniffle, he would be given the rest of the week off, with pay, lest their child with some type of immune system issues fell ill.
That said, I think my friend’s circumstances are pretty exceptional, and that would be the bare minimum for me to consider such an arrangement.
This is what we call a company town. Soon you won’t get real money, just monopoly money you can only use at the company store. No thanks.
I know that’s not exactly what you’re scenario is saying but, feels too slippery of a slope for me personally.
You load sixteen tons, what do you get? Another day older and deeper in debt.
It is one step back into this. It’s something we fight and died over in the past as workers only for these people to bring it back up again as a perk.
We learned this in school so I’m assuming the younger gens aren’t learning any history at all unless it’s a lie “Trump fought wwii single handedly!”
OP specified actual, real currency.
I’m aware. That’s why I said this isn’t your exact scenario.
D’oh! I think I stopped reading and responded early. I hate it when people do that, my bad.
There are cases where whatever business just has a residence in an otherwise private area. Or at least have been. OP didn’t specify either way about the surroundings, though.
They did state some more info in a comment that I saw after I made my post. Regardless, I would be wary but, it wouldn’t be a no if there were good checks and balances
I was gonna say, this sounds like a company town. I’ve seen some videos on company towns and they’re fairly glamorous tbh, I forget the drawbacks, I’m sure it has its drawbacks.
In old school mining company towns the drawback was that they didn’t pay you in real money. They paid you in essentially monopoly money. The currency they gave you was only usable at places owned by the company. The issue becomes, you don’t like your job and want to leave? You have no money. You can’t leave.
What about being fully enslaved to a fucking corp seems glamorous?!
Like the living conditions I saw were pretty good. From housing to the gym they had and everything
I have more details in other threads, but it’s distinct from a company town in that the job is paid by the government, the housing is provided independently of the job, and the housing is controlled by the people who live there
How do you save money to leave if you want to? That’s where the difference will be and at $15 an hour… you’re never leaving.
If that were the case then why would your roommates and neighbors be fellow employees? Also how would the government afford said housing if they’re also subsidizing the company you work for to allow them to be competitive for employees while only paying $15/hr?
Your scenario sounds like it at least has checks and balances which is the only way this could work without employees getting screwed.
You have 2 other roommate/coworkers, and you have 6 neighbor/coworkers.
Immediate end of question for me.
I need a good separation of work and private times/places. Coworkers are not automatically friends.
Nope, roommate is a big nope. Give me a 1 bedroom to myself and yes I’d accept that deal. $15/hr with a 1b1b covered completely is a fair deal.
agreed, unless its a roomate you trust, like friends/bff.
Oh but…I’m gonna need you to come in more this week and… if not… you can find another place to live.
In some countries, 15€/hr is very livable (around 2,4k€ a month working 40 hours per week), especially if you don’t need to pay rent.
I mean, economically speaking, that boils down to if you could earn $15 + the cost of renting those things, with roommate, on your own.
Other variables could effect the answer pretty strongly, but they’re not specified in the question. And, I guess, if you just don’t care about amenities.
