Irish Examiner view: Remote working too good an opportunity to mess up

The strategy aims to establish remote working as a permanent option, one that will be encouraged by tax measures promised in the October budget. File picture

It may be too soon — but only just — to say that today’s tech giants are history’s most powerful empires. 

Nevertheless, they have grown used to an almost unfettered position and influence that manifests itself in many ways, all too often toxic. The pandemic has provided unprecedented opportunities for those behemoths to flex their muscles and they have not been shy about doing so. Nor will they be.

Earlier this year, Google owner Alphabet reported soaring earnings. Net profit jumped by 162% to a record $17.9bn in the three months to March. Yet, international Google employees may face pay cuts if they opt to work from home permanently. In a Silicon Valley trial, Facebook — Q1 revenue $26.2bn, up 48%— and Twitter cut pay for remote employees who moved to areas where costs were lower than in prime urban centres. Not only must remote employees, should this practice become normalised, provide office space they must do so on reduced wages. It is hard to see how this might be regarded as social progress or even desirable.

At a time when the world must urgently reduce the carbon impact of transport this seems a dangerously regressive step. That it is proposed by a sector ever more reliant on data centres with insatiable energy appetites colours the view of these giants too. That any such pay cuts would concentrate wealth is another unattractive consequence. But then, there are many reasons the sector is so vehemently anti-union.

The Government’s national remote work strategy envisages 20% of public sector employees working remotely by the end of this year. This, should all-too-often tottering broadband services catch up with today’s requirements, has huge positive potential. However, it would be entirely understandable if public workers’ enthusiasm for such a fundamental, obvious and necessary change dimmed if working remotely meant lower pay. The strategy aims to establish remote working as a permanent option, one that will be encouraged by tax measures promised in the October budget.

This is unchartered territory and requires new protections for workers and employers. These should be seen as a foundation for long-term social, business, and urban development so they must balance the rights of all involved in what is essentially an exercise in mutual trust. This change can bring huge benefits if properly delivered.

It will add another layer of challenge to our housing crisis as so many of today’s homes do not offer viable workspace options. Meeting this need, through planning regulations or tax changes, is another reason to change the kind of home we build. The work-from-home switch, maybe a learn-from-home one too, will also change how our cities function.

At a moment when so much of what we do has been recognised as unsustainable, every opportunity to avert climate collapse must be grasped. That establishing effective working-from-home structures will contribute to that makes the project even more important. That it can improve the quality of life for tens of thousands of workers makes it even more important to get it right — despite tech giants’ talk about pay cuts. This is too good an opportunity to mess up.