The issue is more complex than merely paying retail. If a W-2 worker now has a significant but small set of "business expenses", s/he then needs to file an itemized return in order to recover those costs. Lots of extra effort or an expensive tax preparer. CSX OTOH buys this crap in "carload" lots one would assume and it is simply another cost kind of like antifreeze for the diesels. For the company it is trivial, for a worker not. disclosure, I am an infinitesimal shareholder--IMHO EHH should never have been allowed on the property, let alone hired.