Commentary: The dark side of corporate perks, how some companies exert control over workers

EUGENE, Oregon: Companies offer all sorts of benefits and extras to attract the most favoured workers, from health care and stock options to free food. But all those perks come at a price: Your freedom.

For example, companies such as Facebook, Dropbox and LinkedIn have offered free food, but it’s not necessarily for employee well-being. It’s for the bottom line. And if your employer offers a gym, free dry cleaning or – heaven forbid – a nap pod, don’t assume it’s an act of charity.As former Zillow CEO Spencer Rascoff observed, perks of this sort mean “that employees are expected to work very long hours and not leave the office too often".

Even signing bonuses – purportedly a rewarded for starting a job – are sometimes structured where you have to pay it back if you leave in the first year or two.But as I learned recently while researching a book about how companies – with some help from courts – exert control over workers, it gets a lot worse. It turns out there is a rich history of employer experimentation with benefits as a behaviour-modification device.

Not only would the prospect of eviction weigh heavily on workers’ decision to unionise, companies could use the vacated housing for strikebreakers. Ford also had an honour roll for employees with the best inspection scores, but even that status was precarious. According to company notations, one worker was booted off the roll for “selling real estate”. Another was dropped for being “drunk” and having a “Polish wedding”.Although few employers provide housing nowadays, workers still rely heavily on employers to provide another basic necessity: Health insurance.

Admittedly, no one interrogated my friends on whether my wedding was excessively “Polish”. But the questionnaire did ask, “How many servings of cookies, cakes, donuts, candy, soda or packets of sugar do you eat daily?”Another necessity of modern life is a cellphone – which college students apparently preferred to food in an experimental study involving “modest food deprivation”.

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