On Feb 10, 3:08*pm, (Cynic) wrote:
On Thu, 9 Feb 2012 13:44:24 -0800 (PST), Ste
wrote:

However - just try getting almost any Engineering employer to agree to
that. Despite the fact that it would cost them nothing at all. Employers
are frequently not flexible, not because of any difficulty, but because
management like to be able to look at who is in the office and do they
*look* busy and so be obviously *managing* their employees.

It's because you gain more autonomy by working from home, and if you
have autonomy then you need to be trusted (rather than simply
monitored). A relationship of trust is always more efficient as a
whole, but for a profit-making enterprise determined to exploit you
and determined to survive in a competitive market, it does not matter
if the operation is 99% inefficient with your labour and theirs, so
long as that 1% of labour generates profits for them and gives them a
good standard of living by comparison to those they exploit.

Both trust and exploitation are 2-way streets.

I'm not sure it is. What you say, is akin to saying that both
cooperation and defection are two-way streets in the prisoner's
dilemma, when in fact only cooperation is a two-way street, whilst
defection is not necessarily so.



Otherwise what you say is correct - working from home is possible only
if there is respect and trust *on both sides*. *As your posts indicate
that you could never trust your employer, it would probably not be a
good thing to allow you to work from home.

I'm not sure I've ever said "one can never trust one's employer".
Anyway, it would depend on what the trust concerned, and also whether
you are making a comparative assessment of their personal character,
or looking at their role within the system and their likely behaviour
based on systemic pressures.

As for whether it would be a good thing to let me work from home, it
could go either way for an employer, could it not, depending on the
quality of the relationship. I'm of a more conscientious and
cooperative disposition than most, but so too I'm of a more punitive
disposition than most when faced with a parasitic competitor.



If an employee feels as you do, that they are being exploited by their
employer,

I'm not sure that does reflect my own feelings, either at the present
time with my current employer, or as a matter of generality. I make a
much clearer cleavage between rich and poor, than between employer and
employee. There are plenty of poor and exploited employers - small
businessmen of the sort who keel over with a heart attack in their
50s! What is reprehensible in some cases however, is that small
businessmen in particular can often throw their lot in with the rich.



then it is pretty obvious that they will do all they can get
away with to redress the balance (as they see it).

Indeed. The retention of autonomy in when and how work is carried out,
is a powerful (if not perfect) means of enforcing fairness and trust,
because any unfairness is immediately penalised by adverse changes to
the important but hard-to-measure qualities of the work being done.



*So if, for
example, you feel that you are not being paid enough, then you'll
probably respond by working fewer hours so that your hourly rate
increases to the point that you believe is more fair.

Indeed.