Unless he was on-the-clock for every minute of his commute, and so are all his colleagues, this sounds completely ridiculous.

@Erik He's not clocking in and out. They're all on a salary basis. I don't particularly know about the legal implications of salary vs hourly and non exempt or exempt in the USA but he's making upwards of 50k a year.

"My initial reaction was that he should start looking for a new job immediately" - I'm with you. I assume your friend wasn't previously working a 6-hour day due to his commute? If not, then trying to force overtime due to a commute reduction is foolish, and may not even be legal. I'd update my resume and get out quickly.

If this was posted from a new account I'd have assumed it was a troll question... I guess that says enough about how completely and utterly insane that management "decision" is. I still don't believe that your friend has seen this at 4 different companies.

Your friend could offer to take a longer route, or go by bicycle, causing his commute to be similar to his coworker's. Then it will be equal across the board.

@Magisch - that wasn't the question. I'm asking if he worked a 6-hour day previously, and is now being asked to work 8 hours per day. Either way, the whole thing is silly. If this is a serious question, your friend needs to choose more wisely than he has in his most recent 4 companies.

I've no idea about US common practice or law here, but this would be nonsense in the UK, since one's normal travel expenses from home to work are specifically excluded from income tax, etc. (That has tax implications if an employee uses a company car for home-to-work travel as well as for other business purposes). Of course if the OP's employment contract explicitly said the company were paying him/her by the hour (or by the mile) for normal travelling time, that would be a different situation - but that would be unheard of in the UK, because of the tax implications.

Makes no sense at all.

Surely his contract covers what the working hours are! That's always been a fairly basic statement in any contract I've ever seen... The only way I'd see it as valid is if the contract or even verbal agreement was that he would work X amount of hours, including commute time. (i.e. it may have been a concession to him when he had the long commute)

Why does the employer care what happens when the employee is not on the premises?

"active time" seems a lot like "waking time" and the company has gotten in its head that they have total control on your friend's whole life. I work to live and if I get 2 more hours of free time, I'll spend them doing something I want.. what they're trying to do is probably illegal. Ask them, if he starts sleeping 2 more hours per night (so the "active hours" are reduced),can he keep his old schedule?

@colmde US is generally at-will, and that's often not a detail included in employment agreements. It's quite common for an exempt, salaried employee to be expected to work 45 or 50 hour work weeks without extra compensation, but "because you shaved an hour off each way of your your commute" is the lamest justification I've ever heard of for 10 unpaid hours of work a week.

Nonsense in France, but as others, it's not Michigan...

Is the company going to pay for his commute too, since it's on "their time"?

Is it possible that your friend's boss said that he should now work 2 extra hours to make it fair as a joke and your friend was totally oblivious to it being a sarcastic joke and took it seriously?

@Ant - It's not illegal unless the OP's friend is non-exempt and since they aren't tracking their hours, it sounds like they're exempt from overtime laws. It's completely ridiculous but not against the law.

@alephzero It's nonsense in the U.S. as well.

@BSMP But surely a company cannot decide unilaterally the amount of hours you have to work after signing the contract?

I live and work in Michigan. What your friend's employer is insisting upon is in no way normal. By their logic, if he were to move further away, they would they reduce his working hours. In that case, why not move far enough away that he only has to work 15 minutes in the office before heading home?

@Ant - The question doesn't state that the friend is a contractor. Assuming they're a normal, at-will employee then they can ask them to work more hours. If they are actually a contractor and agreed to work a specific number of hours, it doesn't make sense that they aren't tracking their hours.

To keep things equal, your friend should drive in circles in the parking lot for 50 minutes upon arriving to and when leaving from the office.

@ThorbjørnRavnAndersen: In Finland, there is a mandatory employee insurance that covers accidents that happen during your commute (in addition to workplace accidents). So if you slip on ice and break a bone while on the way to/from work, the company insurance must cover it.

Were they previously letting him work reduced hours out of sympathy for his commute, and now that he doesn't need it they're going back to normal?

This is not common practice in the US software industry, your commute is your commute, unless you worked accommodations for it into your contract at the start of your employment then changing your commute shouldn't affect your working hours in any way.

@MonicaCellio That is not the case. Neither he nor his coworkers got a rebate in hours worked.

@Ant: "a company cannot decide unilaterally the amount of hours you have to work after signing the contract" -- that's kind of what "exempt" means, though. It's a bit more complicated than this, but in short a lot of salaried employee's contracts don't specify their exact hours, just that they'll work the job their employer gives them. If they were non-exempt then this contract wouldn't be lawful, they'd have to have contractual hours and paid overtime beyond that. The theory is that if the employer asks for too much unpaid overtime, the employee quits, so no legal protection is needed.

I'm going to get hired at that company and move 4 hours away. Then every day I'll come in, work 1 minute, and go home.

@Ant Many jobs in the U.S. don't have any such thing as an 'employment contract.' They're more common in blue-collar jobs, but relatively rare in white-collar jobs, outside of a few particular industries.

Be careful what advice you give to your U.S. located friend - believe it or not, labor laws can vary drastically from state to state. However, this seems like an extremely unfair practice that they should fight against.

@Ouroboros Nice!