Hacker News Reader

Comment by kyledrake | Hacker News Reader

I can't eat a lot of types of food due to allergies. Meat is one of the few things I still can eat without issue. Yes, there are actually people out there (hi, me!) that actually cannot eliminate certain foods from our diets without getting sick. This policy would prevent me from being able to work at that company, for recognized medical health reasons, because I would not be able to do legitimate expenses of food related to travel, nor would I be able to eat probably anything during the "summer camp".

I also have serious concerns about letting companies have moral opinions about paying for choices you make for your own health, for example with health insurance, and considering the current supreme court situation, maybe you should too.

View on HN

Not only is it terrible from a dietary standpoint, it reveals an intolerant workplace culture that I certainly wouldn't want any part of. Most of the world, and likely most of their employees, eat meat. It shows a serious lack of connection with the real world, and a willingness on the part of management to forcefully impose extreme views on a whim.

Sounds like an unhealthy place to work, even if they all become vegetarians.

What if your company said that they are starting a program to reimburse solar panel installation, but that program doesn't cover reimbursement for gas. Would your argument be that most of the world consumes gas, so they're "forcefully impose extreme views on a whim."

This is a false equivalence. It is apparently a matter of custom at WeWork for at least some employee meals to be paid for by the company. To dictate what employees may order in those situations is unconscionable.

Imagine your manager takes the team out for a working lunch, and you basically can’t order anything except for a garden salad from the menu. You have to be at the lunch, but you cannot order like a normal person. That’s wrong.

You can eat whatever you want, WeWork simply won't reimburse you if it is meat.

Once again to reiterate, they are not limiting your choice, they are limiting what they will reimburse.

Alright, you call false equivalence, I call petty fogging if you need your analogies to be perfect.

So to make it a proper example: what if your employer had a job benefit to reimburse gas & electric car expenses to visit clients, and then later decided to stop reimbursing gas.

Also, considering WeWork is taking this stance, if a WeWork boss takes you to a restaurant whose only vegetarian option is a garden salad, then she's totally trolling you.

edit: updating my analogy since i can't reply to your nested comment (not sure why)

Again, false equivalence. I’m not being forced to use either form of energy. However, as an employee at WeWork, there are situations where I would be forced to eat WeWork-sponsored meals, to which this policy applies.

Edit: Since my comment no longer makes sense because you completely changed yours long after I replied to it (not a cool thing to do), I think your electric/gas car analogy would be extremely problematic and would likely result in lawsuits. As you know, most cars are gas-based. If it is customary for WeWork to reimburse employees for work-related transportation expenses, and they then changed that policy to favor employees with electric cars, they'd be sued (and rightfully so). The rules are theirs to set - they can either pay for this category of expense or not - but they can't discriminate. I'd imagine that even this vegetarian policy will meet with a few lawsuit threats, but it's so ridiculous that I think they would quietly cave before any suit was actually filed. Imagine trying to justify the cost of defending such a suit to your investors. I'd love to sit in on that meeting.

Individuals requiring “medical or religious” allowances are being referred to the company’s policy team to discuss options.

In the rare occasions where you absolutely need meat it would be available...

I mentioned in my edit the reply button disappeared. I could have appended the edit instead of changing it inline. No ill will, just trying to refine my analogy as you kept insisting false equivalence (ultimately analogies aren't equivalent).

Love your profile message, you pretty much nailed what's going on with HN. Just keep posting, it's the only way to improve things.

It’s definitely getting more and more extreme around here. The fact that this article made it to the front page, and is generally being viewed as a good thing in the comments section, doesn’t say good things about where HN is headed.

This isn't about where HN is headed. There has been a social shift happening in many countries in the last few years where veganism has stopped being a fringe movement and is entering the Overton window. You should expect to see more and more articles like this in the media, and to see increasingly positive reactions towards them.

Actually you should expect the trend to continue. More consumers are demanding vegetarian and vegan options. Restaurants are selling out of new plant-based burgers and are being encouraged by industry magazines to offer vegan options. Demand is speaking pretty clearly in fact. What was once fringe is rapidly scaling. Nice to actually see the world moving forward in a good direction on this.

I wasn’t just talking about the whole vegetarian thing. I was talking about the idea that the HN community would be in support of any extreme idea like this. If you look at Twitter, for example, almost everyone that commented on this issue thought it was absolutely absurd. Yet here is HN, mostly supporting it, simply because it’s left-leaning. It shows how out-of-touch HN is with the rest of the world. No wonder people are starting to block access to their articles when HN is the referrer [1].

[1] https://jamie.build/how-to-build-an-npm-worm

Are we reading the same comment section? Because I do not see "mostly supporting it", but lots of people arguing on both sides.

Just as I can find both people supporting it and people thinking its stupid on Twitter when randomly looking around. The "real world" doesn't appear to have a consistent opinion on this, which isn't surprising at all.

WeWork's history of firing any employee even hinting at collective bargaining or discussing employee rights in general is well known.

Whatever happened with that unpaid overtime lawsuit they got slapped with?

Heh, try being a vegetarian in the Midwest if you want to feel real intolerant workplace culture.

“Intensely terrible” is one way to phrase “illegal under the ADA”...

I would assume there will be accommodations made for folks with dietary restrictions that require them to eat meat, whether that’s through a simple waiver or a massive lawsuit.

No one's going to get sued for a reimbursement policy. They don't have an obligation to reimburse, and this falls so far outside of fair employment laws. HN is going nuts on this one.

> No one's going to get sued for a reimbursement policy

I wouldn't be so sure.

> They don't have an obligation to reimburse

They don't have an obligation to hire people, either, but if hiring doesn't make reasonable accommodations for disability, it's still illegal.

Why do you say that? It’s certainly in line with the spirit of the ADA, and a cursory Google suggests that lawsuits related to dietary restrictions have been successful.

For what it’s worth, I’m a vegetarian and broadly in support of this policy, assuming it can be made compliant with the law.

Well, they don't have an obligation to reimburse, but reimbursing in a discriminatory fashion could still be legally suspect. There's a difference between not reimbursing at all and reimbursing in a way that excludes certain people. Just like that case with Uber and jackets only for male team members - nobody is required to give out free jackets, but if you only give ones to males and not females, you'll end up in trouble. If not legal one than certainly PR one.

It says in the article that "Individuals requiring “medical or religious” allowances are being referred to the company’s policy team to discuss options."

"I'm a meatarian, an obscure religion. I'm going to expense meat."

I'm also on a FODMAP diet - I've started bringing my own food in to work because I can't eat what they serve at work on this diet. I really don't see a problem. It's impossible to cater to every possible taste, allergy, intolerance and belief. It's nice to make an effort to cater for as many people as possible, but nobody's forcing anybody to eat anything here.

It is possible to go meat free on the fodmap diet, by the way (although people's definitions of the diet are admittedly inconsistent, and it is tricky). To be honest, meat is one the the things I find hard to eat because it's so often cooked with garlic.

>Forcing your employees to only eat certain kinds of food is an intensely terrible thing to do.

I absolutely agree. Fortunately, no one is doing that. WeWork employees can eat as much meat as they want. It's just that WeWork won't pay for it.

Actually, they are doing that. Its an implicit force.

Would you also say that Apple is implicitly forcing their employees to starve because they don't serve free lunch?

I guess I missed how anybody being "forced" to do anything.

Their employees are still free to buy all the meat they want.

They're forced for example in the context of a business trip.

No they're not.

Every company has limitations and provisions on what they'll expense on business trips, and I don't see how this is any different.

Companies used to have one hotel room per trip limitations, too, and if the woman didn't want to stay with a man she could always pay for her own room.

And they also used to let everybody smoke cigarettes inside at their desks. Times change.

That's a really great example.

I don't understand how people cannot see the implicitly force used here. In fact, its a large part of why WeWork is doing this.

Because they are saying you have to travel for work and you cannot eat anything we do not approve. How hard is it to understand that? I travel all the time for work. I cannot eat Gluten (medical reason), when I am in Japan what do you suggest I eat? There are many options that are safe for me to eat and they are all meat based. It is fine they choose not to server meat as part of what the company does as an in house offering but it is not okay for them to tell me what I can it when I am traveling on business. I do not require a drink with dinner. That’s fine, but I do require food I can digest without getting sick. This is pure bullshit over reach. The best part is everyone will just ignore it as no one turns in itemized reports on what they ordered just the CC slip. It is pure BS.

Is this the same conversation we're going to have when the company says no IUD costs can come from your health insurance plan?

and you are free to buy your own health insurance!

a) force WeWork owners to pay for something they're morally opposed to paying for b) force staff to do what exactly? Pay for their own meat?

I'm pro-choice.

The exact same argument is used for requiring companies and insurance plans to pay for abortion.

That doesn't weaken the argument, it just calls into question the argument that employers should pay for abortions.

Where does it stop? When does compensation stop being the company's money and start being the employee's property to do with as they please?

It never started. The employee's wages can be used however they please.

Why are other forms of compensation (e.g. covering business expenses, or insurance) not equivalent to wages?

That is his point.

What if you don't consider it as compensation, but as an expense.

ie. Working for X company will net me $150k in wages, however I will have to pay for my own meat meals, insurance, etc. I probably won't work here. Even though the company pays for only economy class flights and requires me to take one every 3 months.

Maybe it is just me, but abortion and health care plans are in no way comparable to eating or not meat during company events.

But, it absolutely is strong argument for change of the laws so that employer paid healthcare plans are not privileged against individual plans. That way, insurance would be paid by government or employee without having to pay more money then what employers do. The root abomination is that employer has such advantage on insurance market against individual.

That would make healthcare kinda like eating dinner - none of employers business.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com