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It feels like RTO is quickly evaporating the leverage these big companies temporarily created with their mass layoffs. I think the plan was to create a poor lab

It feels like RTO is quickly evaporating the leverage these big companies temporarily created with their mass layoffs. I think the plan was to create a poor labor market so they could demand RTO. Well, it looks like the majority of the industry is calling their bluff and refusing to go back to the office regardless of the threat of unemployment. The tech job market seems to be rejuvenating so I think if people couldn't get RTO to work in this brief window of leverage, that it's an idea that's dead forever.

lamontcg 3y ago
> I think the plan was to create a poor labor market so they could demand RTO. If we hit a major recession and unemployment spikes, corporations will be looking to downsize everywhere, including jettisoning more office space. And the Fed jacking up interest rates and trying to cap inflation and wage inflation is just what the Fed does, they're not caring about RTO. Volker didn't jack rates up in 1980 to force workers back into the office. There may be mangers/executives cheerleading all this, along with the cuts to headcount in tech, because they personally think that it'll result in RTO. But if the economy actually blows up then CFOs and boards will be telling them to cut costs everywhere and offices are a huge sink of money.
- lamontcg 3y ago
  To reply to myself: I guess I should say that what the Fed is doing is class warfare and a major unspoken reason for what they're doing is to remove bargaining power from the workers. They would be more concerned about pay and breaking the back of union organizing if they thought and talked about it more clearly. But they don't consciously talk about class warfare, they've got terms of art they use to talk about it like "2% inflation target" which is nice and ambiguous. However, "removing bargaining power from workers" is certainly a large enough bucket to stuff "remote work" into it as well. So they certainly do want to remove bargaining power, and some managers will think it'll be effective at enforcing RTO, but it isn't clear to me that the crude mechanism they've got will actually result in that. All they can really do is run the economy into a wall. The exact way that it breaks will depend on the push/pull of desperate workers willing to take office jobs again vs. desperate CFOs wanting to get out of office leases and crashing commercial real estate. The real driving force is just reducing worker bargaining power around pay and benfits and organizing though. The effect on remote work vs. RTO will have to play out to see how it happens. My own personal bet is that the cat is out of the bag when it comes to remote work, and that a recession will cause more companies to re-embrace full time remote work to cut costs to survive and flourish. And current RTO companies may start looking at their commercial office properties as massive boat anchors.
fullshark 3y ago
No one has any master plan here, everyone is winging it and trying not to screw up so much they get fired/replaced by the board, while still achieving their preferred outcome. The end result is this kind of limbo, where no one can trust the current status quo fully.
- bluefishinit 3y ago
  This is incorrect. CEOs are literally planning these moves together. In a more general sense they're also creating an open culture to promote this type of thing. Take a scroll through some VC/CEO twitter accounts and see how many whine about WFH or people "cheating" at work, working two jobs, not having a work ethic... The capital class is good at working in its own interest and it has a lot of leverage to do so.
  - fullshark 3y ago
    They are unhappy for sure, and are all copying each other because they are afraid of making the wrong move. They looked at what Musk did with Twitter with great interest I'm sure, looking for lessons for example to carry over, as one of the few leaders willing to stick his neck out. I don't believe there's major orchestration but it is true when everyone's on each other boards an incestuous common sense/wisdom tends to emerge about what needs to happen and what the justification will be, and I'm sure they all believe it's inevitable all the companies move back towards full time on site.
    - ryandrake 3y ago
      Whether it's deliberate collusion or everyone just happening to be uncreatively following each other, the outcome is the same. That said, I've never seen Corporate America so universally aligned on a single thing than they are aligned on "Workers must return to the office." Definitely a tin-foil hat theory, but it really does strongly feel like they're all sitting in the same smoky room somewhere, making sure they all do the same thing in lock step.
    - candiodari 3y ago
eru 3y ago
> I think the plan was to create a poor labor market so they could demand RTO. I highly doubt anyone had that plan. A single company doesn't much influence the total labour market. Or do you suggest they cooperated in smoke filled backrooms?
- bluefishinit 3y ago
  Yes, that's exactly what I'm suggesting: https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2014/apr/24/apple-google-settle-antitrust-lawsuit-hiring-collusion https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2014/apr/24/apple-goo... I've seen multiple CEOs gleefully plan for RTO and talk about the weak labor market together, so I'm surprised anyone would doubt this is happening.
  - DonsDiscountGas 3y ago
    I've seen multiple CEOs talk about how they're successful because of how they grind 16 hours and have amazing business acumen, rather than family connections or just plain luck. Just because they say something doesn't make it true. Just because they want something doesn't mean they get it. If they did, we'd all be working 7 days a week, on site, for minimum wage (which would be lower). Even the places going RTO are mostly going hybrid.
    - bluefishinit 3y ago
      > Just because they want something doesn't mean they get it. I agree, which is why I said the push for RTO is not working in my original post.
  - eru 3y ago
    Enough of them to make a difference to the labour market? Even if ten CEOs get together, that's a drop in the ocean. By the way, the link you provided is nine years old. It that the most relevant one you could find?
- polygamous_bat 3y ago
  > Or do you suggest they cooperated in smoke filled backrooms? Or can you really not imagine better ways of coordinating on this era of internet?
x86x87 3y ago
Yes. The big corps have a very limited time window to make RTO stick. Even more, hiring is going to be problematic for them in the near future.
dnissley 3y ago
> I think the plan was to create a poor labor market so they could demand RTO. This is an extremely paranoid/conspiratorial way of thinking.
- effingwewt 3y ago
  No it isn't, in fact I'd say not believing it plausible is the epitome of naivety, if not outright burying your head in the sand. I'll use the ongoing writer's strike as an example: The studios outright said[1] they wanted them poor and in apartments so they'd have to take a deal. [1] https://www.theroot.com/studios-reveal-cruel-plan-to-push-wga-writers-into-pove-1850631457 https://www.theroot.com/studios-reveal-cruel-plan-to-push-wg...
  - dnissley 3y ago
    I'll grant that studios may have the ability to do what the article says they want to do -- after all the WGA has only 11k members. But let's just take accountants -- there are 1.4 million according to the BLS. Realistically there's just no amount of coordination that will stop a significant portion of those who want to from WFH. And that's just one type of WFH-friendly white collar job.
voisin 3y ago
This seems like wishful thinking to me. It seems to me like more companies are enforcing hybrid, starting with 1 day a week, then 2, and now many are at 3. Maybe there’s a plateau somewhere, but purely remote seems to have lost a lot of steam.
- fullshark 3y ago
  For big tech maybe, but if you are a smaller startup / company it's a godsend, you can finally get elite talent at a lower cost without spending a fortune on an office in a major hub.

lamontcg 3y ago

> I think the plan was to create a poor labor market so they could demand RTO. If we hit a major recession and unemployment spikes, corporations will be looking to downsize everywhere, including jettisoning more office space. And the Fed jacking up interest rates and trying to cap inflation and wage inflation is just what the Fed does, they're not caring about RTO. Volker didn't jack rates up in 1980 to force workers back into the office. There may be mangers/executives cheerleading all this, along with the cuts to headcount in tech, because they personally think that it'll result in RTO. But if the economy actually blows up then CFOs and boards will be telling them to cut costs everywhere and offices are a huge sink of money.

lamontcg 3y ago
To reply to myself: I guess I should say that what the Fed is doing is class warfare and a major unspoken reason for what they're doing is to remove bargaining power from the workers. They would be more concerned about pay and breaking the back of union organizing if they thought and talked about it more clearly. But they don't consciously talk about class warfare, they've got terms of art they use to talk about it like "2% inflation target" which is nice and ambiguous. However, "removing bargaining power from workers" is certainly a large enough bucket to stuff "remote work" into it as well. So they certainly do want to remove bargaining power, and some managers will think it'll be effective at enforcing RTO, but it isn't clear to me that the crude mechanism they've got will actually result in that. All they can really do is run the economy into a wall. The exact way that it breaks will depend on the push/pull of desperate workers willing to take office jobs again vs. desperate CFOs wanting to get out of office leases and crashing commercial real estate. The real driving force is just reducing worker bargaining power around pay and benfits and organizing though. The effect on remote work vs. RTO will have to play out to see how it happens. My own personal bet is that the cat is out of the bag when it comes to remote work, and that a recession will cause more companies to re-embrace full time remote work to cut costs to survive and flourish. And current RTO companies may start looking at their commercial office properties as massive boat anchors.

fullshark 3y ago

No one has any master plan here, everyone is winging it and trying not to screw up so much they get fired/replaced by the board, while still achieving their preferred outcome. The end result is this kind of limbo, where no one can trust the current status quo fully.

bluefishinit 3y ago
This is incorrect. CEOs are literally planning these moves together. In a more general sense they're also creating an open culture to promote this type of thing. Take a scroll through some VC/CEO twitter accounts and see how many whine about WFH or people "cheating" at work, working two jobs, not having a work ethic... The capital class is good at working in its own interest and it has a lot of leverage to do so.
- fullshark 3y ago
  They are unhappy for sure, and are all copying each other because they are afraid of making the wrong move. They looked at what Musk did with Twitter with great interest I'm sure, looking for lessons for example to carry over, as one of the few leaders willing to stick his neck out. I don't believe there's major orchestration but it is true when everyone's on each other boards an incestuous common sense/wisdom tends to emerge about what needs to happen and what the justification will be, and I'm sure they all believe it's inevitable all the companies move back towards full time on site.
  - ryandrake 3y ago
    Whether it's deliberate collusion or everyone just happening to be uncreatively following each other, the outcome is the same. That said, I've never seen Corporate America so universally aligned on a single thing than they are aligned on "Workers must return to the office." Definitely a tin-foil hat theory, but it really does strongly feel like they're all sitting in the same smoky room somewhere, making sure they all do the same thing in lock step.
  - candiodari 3y ago

eru 3y ago

> I think the plan was to create a poor labor market so they could demand RTO. I highly doubt anyone had that plan. A single company doesn't much influence the total labour market. Or do you suggest they cooperated in smoke filled backrooms?

bluefishinit 3y ago
Yes, that's exactly what I'm suggesting: https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2014/apr/24/apple-google-settle-antitrust-lawsuit-hiring-collusion https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2014/apr/24/apple-goo... I've seen multiple CEOs gleefully plan for RTO and talk about the weak labor market together, so I'm surprised anyone would doubt this is happening.
- DonsDiscountGas 3y ago
  I've seen multiple CEOs talk about how they're successful because of how they grind 16 hours and have amazing business acumen, rather than family connections or just plain luck. Just because they say something doesn't make it true. Just because they want something doesn't mean they get it. If they did, we'd all be working 7 days a week, on site, for minimum wage (which would be lower). Even the places going RTO are mostly going hybrid.
  - bluefishinit 3y ago
    > Just because they want something doesn't mean they get it. I agree, which is why I said the push for RTO is not working in my original post.
- eru 3y ago
  Enough of them to make a difference to the labour market? Even if ten CEOs get together, that's a drop in the ocean. By the way, the link you provided is nine years old. It that the most relevant one you could find?
polygamous_bat 3y ago
> Or do you suggest they cooperated in smoke filled backrooms? Or can you really not imagine better ways of coordinating on this era of internet?

x86x87 3y ago

Yes. The big corps have a very limited time window to make RTO stick. Even more, hiring is going to be problematic for them in the near future.

dnissley 3y ago

> I think the plan was to create a poor labor market so they could demand RTO. This is an extremely paranoid/conspiratorial way of thinking.

effingwewt 3y ago
No it isn't, in fact I'd say not believing it plausible is the epitome of naivety, if not outright burying your head in the sand. I'll use the ongoing writer's strike as an example: The studios outright said[1] they wanted them poor and in apartments so they'd have to take a deal. [1] https://www.theroot.com/studios-reveal-cruel-plan-to-push-wga-writers-into-pove-1850631457 https://www.theroot.com/studios-reveal-cruel-plan-to-push-wg...
- dnissley 3y ago
  I'll grant that studios may have the ability to do what the article says they want to do -- after all the WGA has only 11k members. But let's just take accountants -- there are 1.4 million according to the BLS. Realistically there's just no amount of coordination that will stop a significant portion of those who want to from WFH. And that's just one type of WFH-friendly white collar job.

voisin 3y ago

This seems like wishful thinking to me. It seems to me like more companies are enforcing hybrid, starting with 1 day a week, then 2, and now many are at 3. Maybe there’s a plateau somewhere, but purely remote seems to have lost a lot of steam.

fullshark 3y ago
For big tech maybe, but if you are a smaller startup / company it's a godsend, you can finally get elite talent at a lower cost without spending a fortune on an office in a major hub.