If anyone gets fired as a result of this, or suffers performance penalties for not attending team events in fear if this, that would be a slam dunk constructive dismissal case no? This seems so absurd that any employment professional would draft and approve this.
(Sarcasm, of course.)
a) It's just one of many ways that employees can negotiate more favourable contract terms. They can also negotiate more annual leave, fewer hours, smaller notice periods etc... and with proper management it shouldn't cause issues.
b) People who work regularly in the office have perks like their own permanent desk and PC.
c) The cause of this unfavourable situation is the 3 day / week policy put in place by senior management in the first place. Imagine cutting the carpark in half to save costs, and then removing the bike racks as well so that the car drivers don't feel as hard done by. It comes across as spiteful.
As for the "added work of managing", I'm not sure I follow. I previously managed a couple of people, one of whom came in 2-3x per week and the other was almost completely remote but came in occasionally. Once things are set up so that meetings or calls can be done remotely or in-person on the fly, this isn't much of an obstacle. Perhaps it becomes more of an obstacle with larger teams, but that isn't something I hear from other managers in my company. It is tricky to run meetings with half the people in the room and half remote - but this isn't solved by forcing remote workers to stay remote (if anything it makes it worse).
And this is probably why Meta is instituting this policy.
They are changing the default back to what it was (working in office which they can easily defend was the expectation when most employees outside of remote workers were hired), so instead of an employee being able to negotiate a benefit in return for coming to the office, the employee needs to give up benefits in a negotiation to work remotely.
A company I worked for with two Bay Area locations wanted to use badge data to show that certain employees were not based in SF. They were using badge data to support this, and then they could reduce their sf tax base.
For remote in general I’m sure this also applies, even more at the state level. Say you’re in Nevada but coming to the office 4 times a week in California. California will come after its tax share, without any question. It’s likely there a headache to figure out for both you and your company.