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> It's worth noting that the mandatory office attendance doesn't apply to ABK's executives. Recently hired execs like Chief Administrative Officer Brian Bulatao
by pierat 3y ago
> It's worth noting that the mandatory office attendance doesn't apply to ABK's executives. Recently hired execs like Chief Administrative Officer Brian Bulatao, and Chief Communications Officer Lulu Cheng Meservey, have full-time remote status.
Basically, if we want these rights of remote work, we're going to have to unionize and fight for them.
The elites already have this right.
The lines are being drawn. Fight or acquiesce.
- vasco 3y agoOr you know, you can quit and go to a full-remote company. Good companies need good people so this would fix itself. If most of my colleagues and the owners of the company I work for decide they prefer to work in an office, why would I enforce my will upon them, instead of finding people that agree with me? I quit my last job to work fully remote and my boss knows I'd quit the day we'd remove that.
- ausbah 3y ago>If most of my colleagues and the owners of the company I work for decide they prefer to work in an office, why would I enforce my will upon them but this isn't the case, it's management making BS decisions no one really likes. the market is in favor of capital & management in the current market climate so collective action is the only way to push back imo
- thih9 3y agoWhat do you mean by BS? Is it really BS? Perhaps it’s genuinely easier for the management to keep people in the office?
- krainboltgreene 3y agoShow me your deed to the factory or board of directors signature.
- thih9 3y agoI don't follow. What do you mean?
- dymk 3y agoA tragedy of the commons has never been solved without centralized organization, and the “but the market will fix it!” responses are frankly just boring now
- hablog 3y agoHow is this a tragedy of the commons?
- dymk 3y agoA “commons” is any resource, not just some physical place
- George83728 3y ago> The tragedy of the commons is a phenomenon described in economics and ecology in which common resources, to which access is not regulated by formal rules or fees/taxes levied based on individual use, tend to become depleted Okay but with remote work, what's the unregulated common resource being depleted or ruined?
- dymk 3y agoRemote work at Blizzard for Blizzard employees is the resource we’re talking about here
- George83728 3y agoThe suggestion to which you responded was "Or you know, you can quit and go to a full-remote company." The "commons" would be the entire job market for games programmers, not this company specifically.
- bheadmaster 3y ago[flagged]
- cratermoon 3y ago> go to a full-remote company How many stories have we seen now where employers have reneged on their fully remote forever policies?
- surgical_fire 3y agoWhy not both?
- TheSoftwareGuy 3y agoQuitting simply has much higher frictional costs as an employee than as an employer. As a result employers will always have more leverage, including your next employer.
- user68858788 3y agoBlizzard took surveys that showed the majority want permanent remote.
- darth_avocado 3y agoAt this point it’s almost sad that we can say “the market will fix itself” and give up any conversations about improving situations. Market only fixes itself if the power dynamics are the same on both sides, which are not. “Go to a full remote company” only works for you ironically is because not enough people are doing it. Say only 20 jobs in the market offered remote work and there were 2000 people looking for remote work, would you say “just quit if you don’t like it” work as you’re suggesting? Because remember, companies can hire a replacement but you can’t find another job. Ironically, quit if you don’t like it only works at scale if there is collective action. And collective action is hard if you’re doing it on your own, separately from everyone else.
- pierat 3y agoBasically, I disregard *ANYONE* who cows about "the market". The market is Moloch : https://slatestarcodex.com/2014/07/30/meditations-on-moloch/ https://slatestarcodex.com/2014/07/30/meditations-on-moloch/ If you could get your first born's weight in $precious_thing , you'd have a line of people doing just that. Sell a piece of your humanity and autonomy? Cool! Hell, "the market" people would reinstitute slavery if they could.... Oh, wait, they did. https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/economics/indentured-servitude-nurses-hit-hefty-debt-trying-leave-hospitals-rcna74204 https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/economics/indentured-servit... "The market" is whatever the fuck you can get away with to get even more money for you. Most are ethical-ish, but if you look too hard, you might see the 10 year olds in the butcher plant, or the 8 year olds assembling your Apple shit. I think that summarizes what I think of anyone who leans on "the market".
- burnished 3y agoYou're not wrong. Its also worth pointing out that 'the market' memes that people lean on have other requirements; the most crucial is buyers and sellers having equal power, which the labor market immediately discards, by dint of the relative urgency and immediate outcomes of failing to make a deal on the market. A person selling labor has to balance their price against the urgency to secure food, shelter, and access to medical care. A company buying labor can frequently afford to wait months or even years and it may not even make sense for them to hire some one at market rate - the more you pay someone the more others expect to be paid and the more they expect to see their own salary grow. It's something to reflect on when people think companies are behaving stupidly for having interview processes that leave unfilled positions for months - the buyers on the market have fewer and different pressures than the sellers, maybe what they are doing isn't stupid just inhuman.
- yamtaddle 3y agoCould do that, or could unionize. > If most of my colleagues and the owners of the company I work for decide they prefer to work in an office If most of your colleagues prefer the office, I assume your union wouldn't push for mandatory WFH. As for the owners—well, reducing the effect of their preferences on the experience of workers is the point of a union.
- monero-xmr 3y agoJust in case mass unionization of the tech industry fails, you can always find a new job.
- rabuse 3y agoEmployees are part of the market dynamics. We choose where to work, and we vote with our employers.
- ausbah 3y agothis assumes there's always an alternative employer who offers remote work as an option. tech is pretty privileged as a field bc demand > supply for a very long time affording many benefits other fields don't have. now that demand has decreased, companies can affront more control. could easily see remote work become incredibly scared as middle / small companies following signals of larger companies mandating rto
- gnicholas 3y agoIt seems that there's a paradox here: if remote work is good for companies, then why would there not be other companies offering it as an option? It seems like at least one of these statements has to be false. My guess is that remote work is not actually good for all companies, which is leading some of them to call for RTO. Other companies will keep it, but perhaps not as many as employees would like. The same could be said for many aspects of work, like free lunches/dinners/massages, which are also disappearing as the supply/demand equilibrium is shifting as you describe.
- toxik 3y agoIn theory yes, in practice, the market produces ugly effects all the time. Child labor, for example. But I suppose you vote with your wallet or something.
- asynchronous 3y agoThank you for pointing out that this whole RTO movement still doesn’t apply to the elites.
- bt4u 3y ago[dead]
- hef19898 3y agoOne of the benfits of some union-negotiated frame agreememts in Germany, which applies also to non-Union and covers saleries up to low six-figuers, is stuff like 2 days of work-from-home per week.
- lnsru 3y agoI work for fully unionized company in Germany. Even salary comes from union’s table. You vote, elect your representatives. And you know, the bosses come, have meeting with union representatives and layoff happens. Apparently both sides agree, that this measure was needed to keep business running. The there is another meeting and full return to the office happens. There is no miracle in an union.
- krainboltgreene 3y agoYes but a union allows you to come back later and point to the lack of improvement or change as a reason to return to WFH. A non-union workforce has no such bargaining chip.
- dh2022 3y agoIn market based economy the market will "point to the lack of improvement or change as a reason to return to WFH". companies that allow WFH are more flexible then RTO companies. Top talent seems to like WFH more than RTO. In a few years we will see which companies improved: RTO or WFH?
- krainboltgreene 3y ago> In market based economy the market will "point to the lack of improvement or change as a reason to return to WFH". this is a hilarious thought. have you just joined the workforce?
- cudgy 3y agoWhere in the world is this magically efficient market based economy that you speak of? I’ve read of this beast in econ books, but I have never seen it in the wild.
- Reason077 3y agoWhy would companies enforce RTO if there was no advantage to it? Surely they'd love to get rid of those expensive commercial office leases and all the servicing costs that come with them, if WFH was just as good or better? I have no doubt that many employees are individually just as productive or more so when WFH. But collectively, does something suffer? Are teams less productive, less creative? Less opportunities for spontaneous collaboration, etc? What reasons are companies using for justification when they make these RTO decisions? In any case, hybrid work (eg: 3 days in the office per week) seems to be becoming the norm here in the UK. That seems like a good compromise to me.
- fnordpiglet 3y agoIt’s a market for both corporate success and talent. My wager is that companies that optimize for how people want to work and letting them work best will be structurally advantaged in both profit and talent acquisition and retention. Once the emotions die down and boards realize they can boost EPS by reducing real estate and their competitors with open working arrangements are eating their lunch in their markets the corporate provided management mandated human hamster wheel warehouses will be shut down.
- CamperBob2 3y agoYes, let me give up even MORE personal and professional autonomy. I'm sure that joining a union will help me accomplish my career goals as a remote developer.
- ribosometronome 3y ago>unionize Interestingly, the people you name specifically don't want you to do that. For example, Lulu Cheng Meservey: https://kotaku.com/call-duty-mwii-activision-union-busting-lulu-meservey-1849684203 https://kotaku.com/call-duty-mwii-activision-union-busting-l...
- granshaw 3y agoWow mandating RTO while the very top executives still fulltime WFH is French-revolution-era-monarchy-levels “asking for it”
- sirmike_ 3y agoNo thanks. Remote work is not a life or death working issue to galvanize the need for a union. It would be interesting to see what a "perfect Storm' would look like to make a technology workers union make sense in the real world (in the US). On paper a union kinda makes sense until you see your union dues going to support batshit candidates for office. Here in the US virtually all unions support left leaning policies and the democrat party. Time and again the democrat party claims one thing and does another. Like the backstabbing the Biden administration did to Railroad workers. They did not settle that in workers best interests. They solved it to prevent economic disruption. I would rather negotiate my own salary needs than leave it to a union. Technology workers make tremendous amounts of money once you hit middle to senior level career stages. Even more so if you have a specialty. No way would folks given up that level of autonomy. It is simple enough that the remote work issue is settled through the job market. If a company advertises for only onsite work, they have that choice. Likewise me as a worker can exclusively look for remote work. Despite this economy, the technology worker still dictates the terms. For now. I am sure it will go in cycles like everything else.