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

Nope
Removed by mod
State owned company or Walmart?
Living with strangers? Hell no. Provide me with a studio apartment and then we’ll talk.
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.
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.
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.
With roommates? Hell no.
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
Apart from company town concerns, I assumed you’re not being paid in scrip. This could be a great opportunity if this is something that sounds interesting to you. Do you know what rent is if you lose your job? How much float time can you save up off of $15/hour?
Rough math (double check me, I am bad at math): take average rent, divide by 160, and add that to your $15/hour to get a better idea of what you’re getting out of it via free housing.
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.
Oh but…I’m gonna need you to come in more this week and… if not… you can find another place to live.
Fuck no.
Don’t ever let them convince you company towns are the answer to our problems.
No way, absolutely not. Even if I subtract my mortgage payments from my salary, $15/hr still less than a third of my remaining income. Plus, I have a wife and kid. We aren’t all fitting in a townhouse with two roommates.
Also, I don’t think I can go back to apartment living. I don’t like neighbors or people.







