I’m not really sure if I’m required to do what my company is asking. I am a remote employee and recently my company changed their rules on what we will be compensated for when traveling. I’m required to travel to my home base office once per month several states away. I’m salary and located in US. They recently mandated that I need to travel during off work hours (so evenings or a weekend). They will not pay me extra for this travel time (4-5 hours each way). They do pay for the flight, hotel and rental car. They now say they won’t pay for our food because “they don’t have to pay for non remote workers food and shouldn’t have to pay for ours just because we are remote.” They also mandate that I need to be on site for 5 full days where I was previously traveling for 3 (the rule is one trip for month and was never specified how many days). So essentially I am working 6 days that week without any compensation and losing money by paying for food on the road, which is expensive (they told me to grocery shop and get a hotel with a kitchen to save costs).
My question is, is it legal to require me to travel during off hours? I have two very small children and I hate losing this much time with them. I specified when I was hired that I was willing to travel 15% but it was never put explicitly in the contract and this makes it 25%.