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Btw all these costs would be zero if remote work was legally mandated. But remote work showed how high they would have to pay to retain talent in a real free m

Btw all these costs would be zero if remote work was legally mandated. But remote work showed how high they would have to pay to retain talent in a real free market environment. So unsurprisingly everyone forced a return to office policy.

thethimble 4y ago
> if remote work was legally mandated This is hilarious
- toomuchtodo 4y ago
  So were weekends at one point. No intent of derailing the thread, but everything is impossible until it’s done. Would you have thought a few weeks ago that California and the federal government could apply enough pressure to the largest pharma companies to set the price of insulin at $35? Me neither, but here we are. Come out swinging, we have nowhere to go but up. https://www.npr.org/2023/03/01/1160339792/eli-lilly-insulin-price https://www.npr.org/2023/03/01/1160339792/eli-lilly-insulin-... https://www.nbcnews.com/health/health-news/sanofi-insulin-price-cap-rcna75346 https://www.nbcnews.com/health/health-news/sanofi-insulin-pr... Edit: Looks like California has gone so far as to contract to have it manufactured and set the price at $30, even better. Thesis is “change is possible.” Please excuse the length this example took to demonstrate the point. https://thehill.com/policy/healthcare/3907583-california-moves-to-cap-insulin-cost-at-30/ https://thehill.com/policy/healthcare/3907583-california-mov...
- whatever1 4y ago
  Why not? With one stone you hit multiple birds. Housing crisis, traffic crisis, transportation infrastructure crisis, environmental crisis. Covid showed how many jobs can be conducted fully remotely.
  - throwbadubadu 4y ago
    And it showed also how much unthinkable is possible if we want it.. however here we are already again, not being ok to give up false luxuries and who cares about the environment ;)
  - dalmo3 4y ago
    > Housing crisis, traffic crisis, transportation infrastructure crisis, environmental crisis. You forgot freedom of assembly.
  - koolba 4y ago
    > Covid showed how many jobs can be conducted fully remotely. Alternatively, Covid showed how little people were working in the office too.
massysett 4y ago
Remote work will drive wages down, not up. The company can get a remote worker from overseas. Remote work is to the office worker what NAFTA and container ships are to the manufacturing worker.
- zmmmmm 4y ago
  > Remote work will drive wages down, not up I know you don't mean it this way, but it should right? It's fundamentally cheaper - no commute on the employee part, no office space on the employer side. Greatly enhanced flexibility all round. Both sides should definitely splitting the dividends. I'm fine with it if that is how it works.
  - massysett 4y ago
    I agree actually. Stated differently, commuting is a pain for workers, so they're willing to accept a lower wage to avoid it. This also means the worker can live where the cost of living is lower, and be willing to work for less--thus pushing down wages. Arguably the worker still comes out ahead though if she can live where she wants to...assuming she likes working remotely from a low cost-of-living place. If she'd rather live in NYC and go to the office, she might not be happy to see her wage go down.
    - zmmmmm 4y ago
      > If she'd rather live in NYC and go to the office yep - in the short term there will be some discontinuities like this. But longer term - more staff working remotely is going to take pressure off real estate prices in cities, so it will actually be justifiable even there that salaries can fall. Unfortunately since so many office space leases are long term, and rezoning of land use even slower, this can take a very long time to flow through.
- mjburgess 4y ago
  Organizations are currently able to use remote workers from foreign countries. The relevant legal change would mandate them to accept them from their own country. If remote work would "drive wages down", it would already do so -- since that's an option available to employeers now
mochomocha 4y ago
> legally mandated > real free market environment I'm hoping you're just kidding.
- TeMPOraL 4y ago
  They're not. "Free market" is an unstable phenomenon that exists only when dynamically stabilized by appropriate regulations. Without that, it collapses on itself.
  - magila 4y ago
    I honestly can't tell if you're serious.
    - TeMPOraL 4y ago
      I'm absolutely serious. Try to take the things you know about the free markets, supply and demand, etc. and simulate them in your head. Like, run them in a game loop for a couple steps. It should become apparent that the ideal free market is not even an equilibrium state.
    - thwayunion 4y ago
      Modern markets are obviously legal abstractions. The tech labor market would not exist as it does today without substantial very specific regulations of various parties' behavior; e.g., stopping me from: 1. copying my employer's codebase, or 2. exfiltrating my employer's customer and pricing lists, or 3. holding two jobs at competing companies at the same time, or 4. shorting my employer's stock then actively sabotaging the company. To say nothing of the even more basic stuff like squatting in my employer's office or even just using force to take what I want from the company or its executives/sharholders, for example. Labor markets can't exist without lots of strong legal guardrails, and in the case of tech those property rights and contractual obligations are highly fictional and extremely unnatural. Intellectual property, non-competes, non-disclosures, securities regulations on insider trading, laws about industrial espionage and sabotage, the list goes on. All of it highly fictional and unnatural. Modern markets are, definitionally, just a dynamical process playing out that is governed by an enormous collection of state-backed rules. Nothing like what you might consider a "natural" market, such as early civilized man bartering at the bazaar. The amount of propaganda/brainwashing required to believe that something like a modern equity or labor market is a naturally occurring phenomenon... oof.
nh23423fefe 4y ago
This doesn't make sense. What would a mandate for remote work even entail? Positing a cartel in employment wages doesn't explain RTO.
- whatever1 4y ago
  Easy. $10,000/month city taxes to the employer for each employee in office. Proceeds will be used to offset carbon emissions and fund transportation infrastructure.
  - atomicUpdate 4y ago
    The city wants people in the offices, because those workers get taxed by the city whenever they buy anything else while in the city. Having a large population of people in your city promotes commerce like nothing else. The exact last thing a city would do is deter people from coming into it.

thethimble 4y ago

> if remote work was legally mandated This is hilarious

toomuchtodo 4y ago
So were weekends at one point. No intent of derailing the thread, but everything is impossible until it’s done. Would you have thought a few weeks ago that California and the federal government could apply enough pressure to the largest pharma companies to set the price of insulin at $35? Me neither, but here we are. Come out swinging, we have nowhere to go but up. https://www.npr.org/2023/03/01/1160339792/eli-lilly-insulin-price https://www.npr.org/2023/03/01/1160339792/eli-lilly-insulin-... https://www.nbcnews.com/health/health-news/sanofi-insulin-price-cap-rcna75346 https://www.nbcnews.com/health/health-news/sanofi-insulin-pr... Edit: Looks like California has gone so far as to contract to have it manufactured and set the price at $30, even better. Thesis is “change is possible.” Please excuse the length this example took to demonstrate the point. https://thehill.com/policy/healthcare/3907583-california-moves-to-cap-insulin-cost-at-30/ https://thehill.com/policy/healthcare/3907583-california-mov...
whatever1 4y ago
Why not? With one stone you hit multiple birds. Housing crisis, traffic crisis, transportation infrastructure crisis, environmental crisis. Covid showed how many jobs can be conducted fully remotely.
- throwbadubadu 4y ago
  And it showed also how much unthinkable is possible if we want it.. however here we are already again, not being ok to give up false luxuries and who cares about the environment ;)
- dalmo3 4y ago
  > Housing crisis, traffic crisis, transportation infrastructure crisis, environmental crisis. You forgot freedom of assembly.
- koolba 4y ago
  > Covid showed how many jobs can be conducted fully remotely. Alternatively, Covid showed how little people were working in the office too.

massysett 4y ago

Remote work will drive wages down, not up. The company can get a remote worker from overseas. Remote work is to the office worker what NAFTA and container ships are to the manufacturing worker.

zmmmmm 4y ago
> Remote work will drive wages down, not up I know you don't mean it this way, but it should right? It's fundamentally cheaper - no commute on the employee part, no office space on the employer side. Greatly enhanced flexibility all round. Both sides should definitely splitting the dividends. I'm fine with it if that is how it works.
- massysett 4y ago
  I agree actually. Stated differently, commuting is a pain for workers, so they're willing to accept a lower wage to avoid it. This also means the worker can live where the cost of living is lower, and be willing to work for less--thus pushing down wages. Arguably the worker still comes out ahead though if she can live where she wants to...assuming she likes working remotely from a low cost-of-living place. If she'd rather live in NYC and go to the office, she might not be happy to see her wage go down.
  - zmmmmm 4y ago
    > If she'd rather live in NYC and go to the office yep - in the short term there will be some discontinuities like this. But longer term - more staff working remotely is going to take pressure off real estate prices in cities, so it will actually be justifiable even there that salaries can fall. Unfortunately since so many office space leases are long term, and rezoning of land use even slower, this can take a very long time to flow through.
mjburgess 4y ago
Organizations are currently able to use remote workers from foreign countries. The relevant legal change would mandate them to accept them from their own country. If remote work would "drive wages down", it would already do so -- since that's an option available to employeers now

mochomocha 4y ago

> legally mandated > real free market environment I'm hoping you're just kidding.

TeMPOraL 4y ago
They're not. "Free market" is an unstable phenomenon that exists only when dynamically stabilized by appropriate regulations. Without that, it collapses on itself.
- magila 4y ago
  I honestly can't tell if you're serious.
  - TeMPOraL 4y ago
    I'm absolutely serious. Try to take the things you know about the free markets, supply and demand, etc. and simulate them in your head. Like, run them in a game loop for a couple steps. It should become apparent that the ideal free market is not even an equilibrium state.
  - thwayunion 4y ago
    Modern markets are obviously legal abstractions. The tech labor market would not exist as it does today without substantial very specific regulations of various parties' behavior; e.g., stopping me from: 1. copying my employer's codebase, or 2. exfiltrating my employer's customer and pricing lists, or 3. holding two jobs at competing companies at the same time, or 4. shorting my employer's stock then actively sabotaging the company. To say nothing of the even more basic stuff like squatting in my employer's office or even just using force to take what I want from the company or its executives/sharholders, for example. Labor markets can't exist without lots of strong legal guardrails, and in the case of tech those property rights and contractual obligations are highly fictional and extremely unnatural. Intellectual property, non-competes, non-disclosures, securities regulations on insider trading, laws about industrial espionage and sabotage, the list goes on. All of it highly fictional and unnatural. Modern markets are, definitionally, just a dynamical process playing out that is governed by an enormous collection of state-backed rules. Nothing like what you might consider a "natural" market, such as early civilized man bartering at the bazaar. The amount of propaganda/brainwashing required to believe that something like a modern equity or labor market is a naturally occurring phenomenon... oof.

nh23423fefe 4y ago

This doesn't make sense. What would a mandate for remote work even entail? Positing a cartel in employment wages doesn't explain RTO.

whatever1 4y ago
Easy. $10,000/month city taxes to the employer for each employee in office. Proceeds will be used to offset carbon emissions and fund transportation infrastructure.
- atomicUpdate 4y ago
  The city wants people in the offices, because those workers get taxed by the city whenever they buy anything else while in the city. Having a large population of people in your city promotes commerce like nothing else. The exact last thing a city would do is deter people from coming into it.