@deilann even better it would be to manage to impose on the bosses all the costs of commuting, but we need a better organized workforce for that. 8-/

2/2

@oblomov the comment was already done - it is what it is

framing the discussion around productivity doesn't help workers in the long run as it perpetuates the narrative that we need to exploit every potential cent of a worker's labor out of them with no concern for the worker. it also is fragile as we can see with repeated narratives of studies that "prove" WAH actually is less productive "killing" remote work

making companies pay for non-essential commutes is impossible, considering the impact on climate change, urban sprawl, pollution, and risk can't truly be balanced out with payment

it also ignores the people who benefit in other ways than the reduction in commute time. if you let a corporation pay for something rather than actually change, they will. it'll just essentially become a fine.

@oblomov

ah, so people like me are just supposed to wait on access to work while things "move towards" renewing our access

@oblomov i'm legally blind

i can't commute

forcing companies to compensate for commutes means I will be excluded from the workforce again, as companies will just accept that as a "fine" a cost of doing business

@deilann would that be the case?
What we have now is:
1. companies have the power to dictate where workers work, and workers have to pay for the commute out of their own time and money;
The “cost” scenario is:
2. companies have the power to dictate where workers work, but have to factor in the cost of paying (time and money) for the workers' commute
The third scenario is something along the lines:
3. workers decide where to work, and cannot be discriminated for that.

(This is long, continue.) >

@deilann
< IOW, “companies have to pay the cost of commuting” is a must-have regardless of whether who decides where the work is done is the employer or the employee. And in this regard, 2. is actually a stepping stone towards 3.

Moreover, I believe you're underestimating the cost-saving approaches of most companies. Outside of a few major enterprises, a lot of smaller ones would actually go under if they had to start paying workers more fairly (which includes bear the cost of their commute).

@oblomov @deilann

Ob, I love you like my own enby, but I feel you're not listening.

What we saw for many years before covid was that companies would refuse to hire competent people who need to work entirely remotely, and would instead hire less competent people who can commute. You can phrase this as "managers are usually bad at their jobs", which is true, or you can phrase it as "managers' desire to make money is usually lower in their priority list than their bigotries and their desire for control over their employees", which is also true.

The old argument of "why would businesses do X when they can make more money doing Y" runs aground against the repeated observation that most businesses keep doing X anyway. In the real world, managers are not perfect enlightened profit-maximisers.

On the other hand, during covid we saw that if businesses were given an absolute enforced rule of "you must let all office workers work from home, the end, no quibbles", they generally did obey that, and it created space for people who were unable to commute.

On a personal note, the company I worked for at the time absolutely tripped over its own clownshoes by insisting that everyone go back to the office. They lost most of their best staff by doing that, especially in critical tech teams, which then created bottlenecks that pushed everything else back at a huge cost. This was completely foreseeable, they were warned. Some things were more important to them than profit making.

Delian is saying that a system of incentives, like you are proposing, has been shown not to work, but a system of absolute rules has been shown to work. As such, if we want to create space for people who are unable to commute, the correct approach is obvious.

I believe in empirical evidence. I think you do too. I think you should listen.

@passenger
the fundamental misunderstanding here is that I'm not advocating 2. (the “system of incentive”) as an *alternative* to 3. (worker choice), but as a path towards, and one that can and *will* bring benefits to all workers.

I don't see how anyone can claim that the system of incentives “has been shown not to work” given that nowhere that I know of employers are forced to bear the cost of their workers' commutes —or am I missing something?

@deilann

@oblomov @deilann

You're missing that 2 does not lead to 3, because people in power hate disabled people and workers more than they love money.

@oblomov @deilann

Like, you're just assuming that people are rational and bigotry does not exist, and you're making that assumption in a situation which is directly relevant to a form of bigotry.

Consider how this would look with any other form of bigotry, and then consider how your argument might make you look.

@passenger
I'm not assuming anything. But I repeat: have the employers been forced to bear the cost of the employees' commutes in any circumstances, that I'm unaware of?

And second question: given that there are work activities that have to be done on-premise, who should bear the cost of the worker commute in such cases, the employee or the employer?

@deilann