Today, 5/22/2019, Citibank in Hagerstown MD held a meeting to inform all employees that if they qualify, they must work from home.
Citibank Leadership made it clear that the employee has no choice but to work from home and they will not offer any compensation for electricity, internet or office furniture. They will not even allow employees to take an office chair home. The employee is expected to pay all the expenses needed so that Citibank can cut cost. My opinion is the employee is required to take on all the expenses of running a Citibank office in their home so that the CEO of Citibank can get an even bigger bonus than last year.
It is dishonest and taking advantage of their employees by refusing any compensation to cover employees expenses required while working from home. Citibank had to pay these expenses in their office buildings and should have to pay the expenses and not expect the employee to pay out of pocket for the electricity, internet, heat, air conditioning and all expenses necessary.
Last year when all the major banks were giving thousands of dollars in bonuses to all their employees, our CEO chose not to give the employee bonuses but instead chose to take tens of millions of dollars in bonuses for himself.
Today, Citibank CEO has shown he will reach into his own employees pockets and take whatever he wants to enrich himself. Pure greed!
We were told in today's meeting that work from home is not a choice but a requirement. We were also told that we are not allowed to disagree with this decision. Anyone caught disagreeing on social media will be fired. I disagree with Citibank. Work from home is a choice and Citibank has no right to say it is a requirement. If Citibank cannot afford to compensate employees for the expenses they are going to incur, if they cannot even afford to loan out necessary office furniture, if they cannot afford to lease a building big enough for their employees, then they should be offering severance to all employees who do not want or cannot work from home.
They have made it clear, they are shutting down the site in Hagerstown and opening up a small site that cannot accommodate all the employees. Instead of offering severance for employees who can't or chose not to work from home, they instead made work from home mandatory at the employees expense.
Citibank told the employees that they can deduct the expenses from their taxes. Are we now self employed? This also is dishonest. The way the tax law is right now, most employees would have to have expenses totaling more than $12,000.00 per person in the household before they would ever get a tax break for all the expenses required to run a Citibank office out of their own home.
CITIBANK, I'M CALLING YOU OUT ON YOUR DIRTY DEALINGS! Compensate employees who are required to work from home or offer them severance packages. DO THE RIGHT THING!