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Comment by jajko | Hacker News Reader

... which is something people did on their own, without agreeing with their employers on duration etc.

I love working from home, but its just a non-guaranteed perk that can go away anytime and eventually it will, and companies shouldn't break their backs to accommodate people. There is free job market to match one's expectations, triple especially in places like New York.

I really, really don't get folks who setup their lives in the middle of nowhere to save some bucks and then they complain that world and work doesn't come to their doorstep. You took the risk in maybe unclear situation, you bear the consequences if the risk doesn't pan out your way.

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> its just a non-guaranteed perk

"Perk" is another way of saying "working conditions". They are bargaining over salary, benefits, and working conditions. Therefore, it's on the table.

Whether or not the bargaining workers are responsible (or even sympathetic) with their private living arrangements is not part of the negotiations, and so it doesn't materially matter.

The workers are not "owed" WFH, but neither is the paper "owed" RTO. They have to bargain over it. One side, or likely both sides, will have to give somewhere on the basket of issues they are bargaining over. Maybe the paper loses on this, but gets something else they want like lower salary. Or maybe workers are willing to RTO if they get some kind of commute allotment (pay for their gas/metrocard/whatever).

The bargaining is holistic, over the whole contract terms. The process is not simply that they go item by item and try to convince each other to change their minds. The process is that they bargain the entire package until they are both OK with accepting it.

Exactly. At one time it was not “reasonable” to expect Saturdays off, either.

> you bear the consequences if the risk doesn't pan out your way.

Okay, but that's what they are doing. They can't work there anymore under the current situation, so they have accepted that their risk didn't bear fruit and are now no longer working for the NYT. Consequences bore.

They have graciously extended an opportunity to the NYT for it to reconsider the current state before the workers walk away for good. Accepting risk doesn't mean you can't still be cordial. At this point they are still willing to go back if the conditions allow them to. But if the NYT in the end says "no, we don't need you anymore, it is time for us to close up shop", so be it.

> and companies shouldn't break their backs to accommodate people.

Why isn't the inverse equally true? That workers shouldn't have to break their back to accommodate a change in company policy?

> You took the risk in maybe unclear situation, you bear the consequences if the risk doesn't pan out your way.

Again, I think this is equally true going the other way. Companies allowed their workers to move away from the office, why don't they assume any risk that workers won't want to return?

I get that there needs to be a balance of power, but I don't understand why any request from the company is valid by default and any request by workers is somehow an imposition that the workers need to justify. Why isn't the company asked to justify why workers need to RTO?

> Why isn't the company asked to justify why workers need to RTO?

Well, we do know the state of New York offered the NYT (among others) tax incentives/subsidies earlier in the year. I can't imagine the state of New York will be happy if the workforce works from New Jersey (or Texas). Calling upon the workers to work in New York gives the state the economic activity it expects in return for the subsidies it offered.

But does that make any difference to the workers? If they want to work remotely, whatever reason the NYT has is not their problem.

Were you around during Covid? Many of these employers hired fully remote positions with no timeline to move to an office as a contingency.

This isn’t taking away free coffee, this is a significant altering of the employment. It’s no different than moving everyone in a location to a completely different office on a whim.

Your comment is pretty tone deaf in that it is essentially “I really, really don’t get folks who setup their lives to live in a specific location”. The same thing is happening for people in cities and it has nothing do with middle of nowhere.

> I love working from home, but its just a non-guaranteed perk that can go away anytime and eventually it will,

So is getting paid more than minimum wage and getting extra days off. What a non-argument.

> but its just a non-guaranteed perk that can go away anytime and eventually it will, and companies shouldn't break their backs to accommodate people

I think this is the key to the question. We should start seeing WFH as a right rather than as a perk. Just like the dozens of other rights we have gained over the years. If it were for the companies, we would still be working 6 days/week, 80h/day with little or no vacation/sick/parental days. I'm sure those rights were considered normal in the past but not anymore.

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