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Comment by talldatethrow | Hacker News Reader

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Most of the rest of the western world where there is decent employee protections there is usually a clause in the local version of the Basic Conditions of Employment act that reads something like:

"The employer shall provide the employee with all resources and materials necesary to complete the Work for which they have been employed."

I’ve learned that’s what’s the law and what’s done in practice are often quite different.

Eg. A tool belt may not be necessary to get your job done, so the company won’t provide one. However it may make the work experience a 100x better, so everyone is likely to have personally bought their own.

Yes, we need better laws and better enforcement. For some reason the modern conservative movement detests anything like this somehow suggesting this is in the employee’s interest because they now have more freedom.

In most of the world yes. They’ll pay for PPE, tools, car, phone, uniform etc.

Not a hard concept to grasp.

One of the weirdest things for me when I moved to the USA was learning that car mechanics have their own tools... when they change workplaces they take their toolbox with them.

Yup load it on on a Roll-Back and relocate.

As a machinist I have 4 toolboxes. The older you get the more you acquire.

My company does not allow fired employees back on property to retrieve tools.

The shop foreman has the toolboxes carried to gate where they will not allow the company forklift to load the tools onto an ex-employees vehicle.

So people arrange to have a rollback so they can wheel their boxes onto trucks.

Gee I wonder why we can't find any good employees? The whole ordeal is embarrassing.

Not hard to grasp but not enforced one bit.

I have worked 21 years at same shipyard and they will not buy me prescription safety glasses.

They also do not buy safety boots buy require employees wear them.

On top of this we are a government contractor who you think would follow the law.

Come and work at an Australian shipyard https://eyecareplustamworth.com.au/prescription-safety-glass...

https://www.allaustraliansafety.com.au/blogs/as-nzs-1337-6-s...

The rules are there for employer provision of safety equipment and that's enforced.

> I have worked 21 years at same shipyard and they will not buy me prescription safety glasses.

They still have to pay you a lot of money if you do get injured. Might be cheaper to just buy you the glasses no?

in some cases they do! a friend worked for a labour intensive job (X days on, Y days off) and they have a yearly use-it-or-lose-it allowance that he was allowed to claim expenses against for things like boots, jackets, safety gear, etc

who keeps the boots if they lose the job?

the (former) employee keeps them (i imagine for a myriad of reasons like hygiene and various overheads it would take to track such)

things like tools (wrenches, drills, bits, etc) are separately supplied by the company per department/work area (sort of like hot desking in the office world) and stay with the company at all times

Guess it depends on field and where ya work. Places I've worked at will provide tools that you then keep. Only things I haven't kept are "Borrowed" tools which are your couple grand diagnostic tools, or other similar items.

All drills, anything I've bought through tool allowances, and the such, I've kept.

My dad would get a coupon for a pair of steel-toe boots every 5 years from his employer, and he got to keep the old boots after they "wore out". Now he's got a clean rack of pretty good looking boots after 25 years at the same place.

I’ve had… three separate employers provide me steel toe boots. (Well, had me buy some and reimbursed it.) All allowed me to keep them.

I think it’s mostly just a matter of people’s feet varying in size so much it’s not worth the hassle to try and provide them directly or get them back after, because I’ve had uniform shirts and pants and things taken back, washed, and given to someone else… just never shoes.

Who wants used work boots? Ew.

How far do we take this? As an engineer should I be on the hook for the AWS bill?

The finance firm i worked for paid for my blackberry.

Does your company pay for the suit you have to wear to the office?

If your company mandates wearing a suit, specifically, then they should.

Whenever the slightest shred of pro-worker regulation, in this case even something that already exists, is being discussed, I can always count on HN’s strong US contingent to be dismissive and act like the rest of the world hasn’t solved this already.

What is rest of the world? I notice 100s of millions in Asia and Africa working in rather horrible condition compare to US at 1/10th of pay even after adjusting lower cost of living.

Who wears suits these days? I've only even interviewed at one place with so much as a dress code (Lockheed Martin, industrial year student 20 years ago, the Havant office is ridiculously close to my parent's house at the time, I didn't get the job anyway).

They paid for my labcoat, yes. Another paid for my chaps.

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