The elite's war on remote work has nothing to do with productivity • Hacker News Board

Re: The elite's war on remote work has nothing to do with productivity

#141

Post by kelnos » Sun, Aug 13, 2023, 7:10 PM UTC

FirmwareBurner wrote: post #107

bobthepanda wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They can if they care; New York City’s municipal employee union negotiated just that. https://www.nytimes.com/2023/02/17/nyregion/adams-remote-wor...

Municipal and government workers are different, as they can always demand whatever they want because they don't have competition and don't need to turn a profit so you're stuck with them whether you like it or not. What else are you gonna do, get your permit from another country's government? The government's monopoly is the real leverage here.

Many industries (in the US at least) are dominated by union labor. Some jobs even require union membership, even if you don't want to join the union. So these companies simply can't avoid union workers if they actually want staff.

Re: The elite's war on remote work has nothing to do with productivity

#142

Post by chanakya » Sun, Aug 13, 2023, 7:10 PM UTC

camgunz wrote: post #127

chanakya wrote: post #120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sure, there are all sorts of problems with capitalism. But as Churchill said about democracy, it the worst form of economic organization except for all the others that have been tried from time to time.

Eh I would say Socialism as practiced in Western Europe and the Nordics is doing better. They're out doing the US in most important metrics, and they're trending more Socialist (though we'll see what intensifying climate migration and other climate change consequences bring).

A core element of socialism is that all industries and natural resources are state-owned. European countries are capitalist, not socialist, and got where they are by being so.

Re: The elite's war on remote work has nothing to do with productivity

#143

Post by faangiq » Sun, Aug 13, 2023, 7:10 PM UTC

Yes this is well known.

Don’t forget it’s also in the interest of middle managers to lower the productivity of the people at work, who actually add value as well. This decreases the productivity gap and helps to not expose how useless they are.

Re: The elite's war on remote work has nothing to do with productivity

#144

Post by camgunz » Sun, Aug 13, 2023, 7:10 PM UTC

davidw wrote: post #136

camgunz wrote: post #127

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Eh I would say Socialism as practiced in Western Europe and the Nordics is doing better. They're out doing the US in most important metrics, and they're trending more Socialist (though we'll see what intensifying climate migration and other climate change consequences bring).

Anyone who thinks that, say, Denmark is not a mixed economy with a strong bit of capitalism as well as a strong social safety net has never dealt with a kid who wants to buy lots of Lego.

There are important differences between Denmark and the US though. Aren't we saying the same thing?

Re: The elite's war on remote work has nothing to do with productivity

#145

Post by camgunz » Sun, Aug 13, 2023, 7:12 PM UTC

davidw wrote: post #139

camgunz wrote: post #118

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Weren't people right about this though? Institutionalized racism and sexism was everywhere, neoliberalism created the most unequal society since the era we unironically call "the robber-baron era", the carceral system is truly heinous (the ban on weed alone was just a joke), etc etc etc.

Things like racism and sexism are very real problems, but not some key component of "capitalism".

The article Op linked is about "The Man", which is generally the white, Christian, capitalist patriarchy.

Re: The elite's war on remote work has nothing to do with productivity

#146

Post by shrimpx » Sun, Aug 13, 2023, 7:12 PM UTC

skwirl wrote: post #24

How are "the elite" forcing companies that do not own real estate and who rent their office space to mandate RTO? How are they forcing these companies to renew their leases when they expire?

Companies who own city real estate are getting screwed. This includes all the big tech companies. That real estate is no longer an appreciating asset, and cannot be converted to residential, when the prospect is the collapse of downtowns due to people migrating out to smaller places.

Re: The elite's war on remote work has nothing to do with productivity

#147

Post by kelnos » Sun, Aug 13, 2023, 7:13 PM UTC

PaulHoule wrote: post #113

FirmwareBurner wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Unions. From my recent experience, unions can't help you keep remote work they way they work here today. I work(ed) at a unionized German company and when management call everyone back to the office after the Covid vaccination was done, it wasn't protested by the unions and everyone sowed up at the office without protest, and remote work was kept as "in case of emergency" perk you can get every now and then if you g…

In the orthodox Marxism still practiced by some Trotskyites, the factory worker is seen as a uniquely revolutionary class because of (1) the discipline that comes from factory work and (2) the factory as itself as a nexus of revolution: workers can organize there and ultimately seize control of the means of production. A knowledge worker who works at home on cloud servers has no spatial nexus to control. All communic…

Knowledge workers can seize things to a certain extent. Upper management (and even lower management in some cases) don't control or even have ready access to critical cloud credentials.

Sure, executives can call the cloud provider and gain access, but not before significant damage to the business can be done. And regardless, that's not much different than factory workers getting the police called on them by the factory owners.

I think the main issue is that knowledge workers are not organized (and generally look down on the idea of union membership), and don't really have the guts to step out of line like that.

Re: The elite's war on remote work has nothing to do with productivity

#148

Post by supertofu » Sun, Aug 13, 2023, 7:15 PM UTC

warning26 wrote: post #133

ben_w wrote: post #130

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In principle it could be straight up targeted propaganda "making" the bosses do that. I have no idea if the reality is more that, or more the banal "nobody is organising anything like this and suggestions to the contrary are just conspiracy theories, the bosses genuinely believe what they're saying". I currently have a boss who appears to sincerely want people back in the office; he doesn't want to be the CEO of a 10…

I feel like often article-writers miss the fact of people like your boss: some people just legitimately like being in an office and there's no conspiracy to speak of. As someone who likes being in an office, I personally feel that everyone becoming permanent WFH basement gremlins is a bad thing overall. Human contact is a good thing , and my observations of people who are 100% WFH is that they almost never interact w…

You do realize that people who WFH have friends and communities outside of work, right?

Re: The elite's war on remote work has nothing to do with productivity

#149

Post by kkfx » Sun, Aug 13, 2023, 7:15 PM UTC

Ladies and Gentlemen it's not just real estate, it's the service economy. Without enough office workers cities will be just a dens of poor and desperate. Without a working city who will:

- buy ready made food delivered by a human or mechanical drone ?

- use all city service where without them living in modern small apartments would be very uncomfortable ?

- who want uber and similar transportation model, since in less dense areas anyone have a car except very few (the few who can't drive) ?

- who want mobile smart crap if anyone have a home office ?

Re: The elite's war on remote work has nothing to do with productivity

#150

Post by camgunz » Sun, Aug 13, 2023, 7:15 PM UTC

chanakya wrote: post #142

camgunz wrote: post #127

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Eh I would say Socialism as practiced in Western Europe and the Nordics is doing better. They're out doing the US in most important metrics, and they're trending more Socialist (though we'll see what intensifying climate migration and other climate change consequences bring).

A core element of socialism is that all industries and natural resources are state-owned. European countries are capitalist, not socialist, and got where they are by being so.

Sure, I'm saying:

- there are big differences between US capitalism and European social democracy

- European social democracies are trending more socialist all the time

> European countries are capitalist, not socialist, and got where they are by being so.

Ehhhh communist movements, multiple devastating wars, and unions had a hand in it too.