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Comment by tablespoonsruby | Hacker News Reader

In the same way that most people don't want to pair program full time, but it's perfectly legitimate for a company to decide it wants to be a full-time pairing shop if they think it's important enough to limit their hiring pool to people who want to pair program, it's perfectly legitimate for a company to decide it does not want to be remote.

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The problem is, as usual, one of power imbalance. Employers -- especially those in industries where unions and collective bargaining is unusual -- tend to have a lot more power in the relationship than their employees do, so they get to dictate terms, at least up until the point that labor willing to accept those terms becomes scarce.

I think we can agree that if every software company decided that they were going to be a full-time pairing shop, that'd be a bad thing. In the same way, I don't think it'd be too much of a stretch to also suggest that it'd be bad if all employers decided that their workers had to be butts-in-seats 40 hours (or more) per week, no exceptions.

> I don't think it'd be too much of a stretch to also suggest that it'd be bad if all employers decided that their workers had to be butts-in-seats 40 hours (or more) per week, no exceptions.

Well, yes. That's not happening, though. My point is that I see people essentially claiming that it's immoral for any companies to not permit remote work, and I disagree with that.

What is the difference between mandated butts in seats for 40 hours and not permitting remote work?

Nothing. There's a difference between all employers forbidding remote work, and only some of them doing so.

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