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Comment by blackeyeblitzar | Hacker News Reader

> “The charges in this case should be a wakeup call for American companies and government agencies that employ remote IT workers,” Nicole Argentieri, head of the Justice Department's Criminal Division, said.

I really hope this doesn’t become ammunition for companies who force unjust and unnecessary return to office policies.

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Unnecessary - perhaps. Ill-advised, since a lot of talent greatly prefers remote work - perhaps. But unjust? Aren't you taking it a bit far? You don't have the right to remote work.

I'd consider it unjust if I was hired for a remote role and they changed that deal later.

It’s just business. Everything is subject to change all the time. Unfair, rude, etc, but unjust is a bridge too far.

Unjust might be society not offering a sufficient safety net to ride out income volatility.

Shouldn't businesses abide by contracts, even verbal ones? If you were hired in office, went remote and then RTO now I understand your viewpoint. But if the company hired you for a remote role that's part of the contract, and RTO is breach of contract.

> if the company hired you for a remote role that's part of the contract, and RTO is breach of contract

Sure, and the contract should be terminated.

Within the context of this article, learning you may be funding sanctioned activities is a valid reason to revisit your business assumptions.

>Sure, and the contract should be terminated.

So in your view all contracts should be meaningless if one party doesn't want it anymore? Do we even need contracts then?

Sorry, I was writing from the perspective of US employees, 99% whom do not have employment contracts (at least not regarding the length of employment). It is usually “at-will” employment, where either party can choose to walk away anytime.

Yes, promissory estoppel is a thing.

It's "just business" to the company, it's very personal to anyone affected by it.

I find "it's just business" and "it's not personal" to be some of the most insulting and gaslighting phrases in the English language, by how they dehumanize the person at the receiving end of them.

If I stop shopping at a specific vendor, I am doing the same thing. The person operating the farmer's market stand or a food truck or whatever is a human too, but it's perfectly fine to say that you will no longer patronize that business.

People are affected by loss of income, and it is tragic. I don't think a buyer ceasing to buy from a seller is injustice, regardless if the relationship is employer/employee or customer/business.

It is society that should be providing the stability necessary for business to just be business. If a business makes a mistake, it is not unjust for the business to correct course which could involve changing its terms with its vendors (including employees).

The analogy falls apart somewhat when the vendor is prohibited from selling their product to others and the buyer provides their healthcare. Employment relationships are different than other kinds of business relationships and the law recognizes that.

As I understand, non competes are unenforceable in the US due to recent FTC actions. And employers pay for a portion of health insurance premiums with pre tax income. This tax benefit can and should be legislated away so that all individuals have the ability or inability to pay for health insurance with pre tax income.

In regards to when an employee or employer can terminate buying or selling labor, US law outside of Montana is “at-will”, meaning either party can stop buying or selling labor anytime they want, barring a contract that stipulates otherwise.

I was referencing exclusivity clauses rather than noncompetes, and the vastly different nature of employment law from other contractual arrangements.

Sorry to be blunt, but... so? Take the phrase away and it becomes "a business decision" which is just as impersonal, but that's an honest reflection of how decisions are made. Are you arguing against businesses making decisions or just the language?

I find entitlement to be be one of the things wrong with the world today. It’s really a testament that we can have such opposing viewpoints at the same time without worrying about consequences, huh?

"Unjust" is really just a matter of personal taste. Your claim that it's just has no more validity than a claim that it's unjust.

Saying "it's just business" is just a canned phrase for minimizing a general dismissive attitude toward the welfare of workers.

>Saying "it's just business" is just a canned phrase for minimizing a general dismissive attitude toward the welfare of workers. reply

I don't think I am dismissive toward the welfare of workers. I strongly advocate for government helping workers by at least increasing/streamlining the process of receiving unemployment benefits and/or taxpayer funded efforts to re-train in the event of loss of income or even relocation assistance.

RTO mandates for remote hired workers aught to be considered defacto constructive dismissal and grounds for a civil suit for lost wages. The fact that companies can pull this kind of bait and switch is A.B.S.O.L.U.T.E.L.Y. a miscarriage of justice that is harming families and ruining lives.

If the outcome of the policies is an unjust outcome I don't think the term is inaccurate, even if the common use of it refers to one's legal rights.

> You don't have the right to remote work.

What I have a "right" to is ultimately a matter of personal judgment. Isn't it?

I'm all for WFH but a right implies someone else has an obligation

I disagree. How does someone else have an obligation to my freedom of speech?

There is nothing to disagree here, it’s the philosophical definition of a right. It only exists if there is an obligation on the other side, in this case, to allow you to speak freely and without interference (applies both to individuals and the state).

Only for positive rights, and not always for those either.

No. You have an obligation not to violate my negative rights, too, e.g. we prohibit murder but don’t guarantee a right to life at any cost.

My battery ran out before I could delete. I had another sentence there at first about "unless you call respecting rights an obligation," but I took it out because I didn't want to make a mess. To me an obligation in this context means the thing which is created by a positive right. (IME when someone uses "obligation" for negative rights, it's often for a bad-faith argument relying on the vagueness of "rights" to score a rhetorical point.) The analogous but different thing that some would say arises from a negative right, to me, is properly described another way.

My right to life[0] can still exist without you being obligated not to murder me. It means that I am always justified in self-defense, so if you try to kill me, I'm allowed to kill you back. Except not always. But basically always. Except for the exceptions we can frame a million different ways. In practice, neither of our rights to life are absolute...and so on, down the rabbit hole.

[0] But wait: My natural right? My legal right? In terms of enforcement? Or in some vague sense that I "have" a right and those are words I get to say, and, uh, if you don't like it then I'll say them again? In practice, no one cares. People just say "rights" to mean "I'm right."

Talking about rights is fraught and frustrating and mostly pointless, and my comment wasn't worth writing, but there's nothing I can do about it now.

What kind of "right" are we talking about here? Constitutional? Natural?

Not remotely. Wow. You have a right to seek whatever you want, but seek only.

Judgement? Sure. Personal? I sure hope not. I can declare myself the rightful recipient of all cash, but so what? Rights need some buy-in from society.

I don’t like it either but it is a real concern. We can’t ignore it but we can try to frame the conversation correctly: we should be able to say this isn’t happening because we have good security policies and monitoring, etc.

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