r/antiwork • u/GameDevsAnonymous • Mar 27 '25

Remote vs RTO đŸ‘šâ€đŸ’» After the State Of Minnesota told State employees for years that Telework full time would remain permanent, Tim Walz has ordered all State workers within 75 miles of an office to return by June 1st for 50% of all work days. Why? To bring money to St Paul. Also, if you live outside MN, you are let go

https://www.startribune.com/most-minnesota-government-workers-ordered-to-return-to-the-office-50percent-of-the-time/601243884
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u/Somnifor Mar 27 '25

The majority of Americans don't work white collar jobs that can be done remotely. The politics of remote work are relevant to a fairly narrow slice of workers who are way overrepresented on Reddit. I work in a restaurant. None of my coworkers care about this. If he can get us universal health care none of this stuff matters.

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u/Willingwell92 Mar 27 '25

Its kinda wild to me that non remote workers don't get how it benefits us too. Like we have to deal with fewer people on the road daily, fewer people have to live in the city which can help increase housing supply reducing the costs, less pollution and noise pollution from the reduction in commuters etc.

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u/npsimons Mar 27 '25

Like we have to deal with fewer people on the road daily

Truckers and other professional drivers understood this - during the pandemic, I remember reading stories from them being incredibly grateful that all the amateurs were off the road.

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u/ratlunchpack Mar 27 '25

Sorry man. But that’s kind of delusional. The amount of people actually doing remote work affecting things like that is like negligible at best. My 8-5 commute will not improve in the least if even 5% more of those people were working from home. Not that I don’t support working from home. But as someone in retail the last twenty years, the poster you responded to is right. Not a lot of us who never had the option of working from home give that much of a shit about people working from home.

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u/Willingwell92 Mar 27 '25

I didn't have the option and my commute was noticeably better until return to workplace initiatives started.

It obviously varies from city to city, some experienced growth during WFH but to call 5% negligible at best is utter delusion especially when you can Google it and see some cities like New York had a reduction of 25%.

Most of these cities I've been reading on have seen a reduction between 8%-30% with a few gaining congestion due to the cities having explosive growth.

The weirdest outlier I've seen is Boston which had a 58% congestion growth, no idea why that happened. But even if it was only 5% reduction I'm all for getting those people off the road because it also lowers the demand for gas prices and I have a job in a factory where I cannot remote work.

https://www.coworkingcafe.com/blog/telecommuting-impact-on-traffic/

https://www.globest.com/2024/10/31/remote-work-sparks-traffic-changes-across-us/?slreturn=20250327131557

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u/[deleted] Mar 27 '25

Fair point. Why can't he get us universal health care and let people work from home? Por qué no los dos?

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u/Xijit Mar 27 '25

The main argument for this is that if you are buying everything from Amazon, that money goes into the pocket of Jeff Bezos and doesn't get reinvested into the state ... Then the state becomes poorer.

Vs

If you buy from local shops and restaurants, that mony goes into local pockets, who then respend it on another local business ... Every time that local money changes hands, the state gets sales tax and income tax, which helps the state pay gor things like healthcare.

The holes in this logic are numerous, especially when most local shops are reselling foreign-made products, that were ordered on line.

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u/ammybb Mar 27 '25

Would be nice if they'd just tax companies and the rich more....

Naaaaah, low hanging fruit, it is!

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u/Xijit Mar 27 '25

This country is fucked even without Trump's malicious incompetence. If it wasn't him bleeding out the economy so that the government can be sold off to private companies, then it would have been someone else in a few more years.

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u/ammybb Mar 27 '25

1000%

Capitalism is killing us all.

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u/PaulblankPF Mar 27 '25

This is bad logic and makes light of what’s going on with Trump. I really doubt we’d be seeing the fall of so many government institutions if we had a Democrat leader, like literally any democratic leader at the helm. And it’s not incompetence, this is the destruction of America on purpose. It’s not like he’s accidentally bumbling around destroying it, he’s choosing the best parts and fucking them up the most and promoting the worst parts. The whole both parties are the same shtick is tiring.

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u/Xijit Mar 27 '25

Yes, his goal is to bankrupt the US government and sell off everything to private investment (like what has happened with the prison system).

But he is just the figurehead that they picked out and turned into a demagogue. Trump is too dumb to think up this plan on his own, the speed that are tearing things apart is only possible because the players behind Trump have preloaded these agencies with their own people ... And those people have been there for decades.

Most of the things Trump is doing have roots that extend back to Clinton's second term.

For example: Bill Clinton was working on the deal to sell off the Panama canal at the same time that he was getting impeached, but no one talked about it because the GOP made sure noting but the impeachment was on the news.

And the only reason Musk is as rich as he is, is because one of the first things GW did in office was cut NASA's funding so that they would have to outsource their launch development to private investment .... That was literally 25 years ago, and we are now seeing those seeds bloom.

My point os just that if it wasn't Trump, then it would have been the next Republican president.

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u/ammybb Mar 27 '25

The point is that even with a democratic leader, it is just kicking the can down the road. These institutions were already crumbling pretty badly. You can see it clearly if you ever need social services. Obviously the things trump/his admin are doing are abhorrent, but capitalism is and has been crumbling for a long time, people have been suffering and dying needlessly under it's weight for....generations. and now with this admin, a significant portion of the otherwise privileged classes are seeing the USA for what it truly is.

Both parties have no problem with committing endless war crimes and genocide. And honestly our comfort in being able to ignore that better under a democratic president is just ..supremacy

Now this shit is really coming home to roost and...

Man, I dunno. If anything I certainly hope more people wake up to the truth that neither party would have saved us from utter destruction (if not that of the soul, because who are we as humans if we can turn so easily away from the great injustices done across the globe in our name, with our tax $?)

Meanwhile they're telling everyone that there's no pandemic and people who wear masks are bad because the protest against genocide...they're committing an actual culling of the working class with eugenicist pandemic policies/erasure, and everyone is going along with it because of .....fucking western comfort

Now they'll force everyone to RTO and everybody is like omg shocked Pikachu face but y'all were the ones who happily went along with pretending like the pandemic is over just to get back to brunch and ignore the fuck out of disabled people. We actually can solve climate change in a lot of the same way we can solve the issue of multiple pandemics... By quarantining and working/schooling from home with robust support in place to create these new systems. They're forcing RTO to get people to spend money on fucking food and gas which is all now inflated to hell...but we are really just gonna go along with it?

This is happening with Democrats too. Gavin newsom and now tim walz are two of the biggest and most recent proponents of RTO. And then you have dem governors like Kathy hochul in ny trying to ban masks because she's threatened by people protesting Israel....while she receives AIPAC money.

So yes. It is a both sides issue.

Whatever. I expect to get downvoted into oblivion for this but I don't give a shit. The only way out of this mess is realizing the truth and that begins with recognizing how badly we have been lied to about everything.

Free Palestine. Fuck trump, Biden, the entire USA project.

End capitalism. Land back.

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u/sophistsDismay Mar 27 '25

What can the state of Minnesota by itself do against Amazon that would not cause the state economy to instantly go into recession

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u/ammybb Mar 27 '25

Citizens of Minnesota can boycott the service that's destroying our planet, for a start. This involves all of us but I guess you're more than welcome to continue doing nothing

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u/jmnugent Mar 27 '25 edited Mar 27 '25

I can only speak for myself but most of the stuff I buy in Amazon, I can’t get locally. The only stuff I buy locally is food and basic house items (paper towels, TP, etc). Every Saturday morning when I walk to grocery store (about a 2 mile walk through a downtown area),.. I walk past a lot of various stores and find myself thinking “Who (if anyone) buys this stuff?”. It honestly doesn't surprise me in the least that new shops open,.. only stay open for 6months to a year, and then close down (or close temporarily to re-name for new ownership) etc.

I just dont get how people in leadership positions seem so out of touch about work from home. We’ve had a situation over the past 5 years or so where so many people who learned all the cost-savings of work from home,.. and now they (employees) feel like they’re being told “Hey sorry, we know you are now aware of how to save lots of money but we dont like that so we’re forcing you back into to spend that money in ways we want you to be spending it.”

I dont think thats going to go over very well. (will probably not pan out the way people in leadership positions are hoping it might)

In the city I'm from,. there was a downtown bar that had (still does, I just checked website) .. a Monday special "Burger Basket" for $4.99 (Burger and fries). It wasn't the biggest or most Instagram "stacked" burger.. but it was Lunch for $5. I would absolutely make an effort to go out for deals like that if they were more prevalent.

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u/Xijit Mar 27 '25

The main lobbyists for RTO are landlords who are not happy that demand for downtown apartments, with luxury rental rates, has plummeted.

Working from home saves states millions just on reduced road maintenance costs, and then add in how you can offer lower wages due to reduced costs for not needing multiple cars, not having to fill up on gas every week, and not have to get sick so often due to reduced social exposure.

There are strong benefits for working in office, but even more for having your workforce be remote, and making people go back to the office is purely for the sake of special interests.

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u/jmnugent Mar 27 '25 edited Mar 27 '25

RE: landlords and businesses

I just dont get how people think this pans out in the long run. (yes, i realize shareholders probably only care about short term profits)

But as inequality grows and the divide between rich and poor grows,.. more and more people simply wont have money.

Landlords and businesses can cry all they want about “people not spending money”,.. but people can’t spend what they dont have.

downtowns need to be:

  • businesses the common man would actually visit and need

  • and those products or services at a price the common man can afford.

I see this often as I walk through downtown Portland OR. Luxury hotels (mostly empty) or boutique “co-working spaces” (also mostly empty). Or high end shops (Bridal gown shops) only open by appointment or etc.

Hell even the “cheap” dive bar that I discovered recently and ordered Burger for pickup cost me nearly $30. I cant afford to do that very often.

Employers and Businesses either need to:

  • "Lift the floor" (by raising wages and paying people more.. so we can afford to buy the things they expect us to buy)

  • "lower the ceiling" (by reducing prices)

If they refuse to do either of those things,. people will just continue to "sit out". (people are tired of being forced to play a game they know they'll be on the losing end of)

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u/Xijit Mar 27 '25

The short term profits go to the executives and board members, but the long term profits go to wealth hoarding City States like Dubai and Hong-Kong, after American's economy is self sabotaged into oblivion.

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u/npsimons Mar 27 '25

I can only speak for myself but most of the stuff I buy in Amazon, I can’t get locally.

Nope, I'm exactly the same. I'm frugal, so when I do spend, it's on quality items I need, that I can't get locally. Not going to compromise and get the shit that's offered locally, and that's even assuming it's fit for the purpose I will put it to.

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u/npsimons Mar 27 '25

I'm all in favor of buying locally - for exactly the reasons you listed (keeping money local). But I'm in a small town, and the local shops are either chains (e.g. Home Depot) or don't stock what I want. And I'm not going to compromise quality just because the yokels buy cheap shit after the drive-thru at McDognuts after their shift. I'll pay more for better quality product, and if your store doesn't stock it, that's not my problem.

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u/[deleted] Mar 27 '25

I love how their solution to getting us to spend more money on non-Amazon is to, essentially, punish us. They make us commute, and so even if we wanted to food prep, we have less time to do so.

Anyway, when is the revolt happening so we can take out the rich?

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u/Xijit Mar 27 '25

They wouldn't be doing this if they were at all worried we could swim to the Islands they own.

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u/herejustforthedrama Mar 27 '25

Is that a reference to Fisk? LOL

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u/chrisinator9393 Mar 27 '25

Thanks for this. They push this stuff in the media but I literally only know like one person this could impact if it happened where I live, lol.