Are You Subsidizing Your Employer?

“Decades worth of collective bargaining may have led to the delivery of acceptable health and safety standards in the workplace, but what good is all that legislation if the rise of hipsters working in coffee shops or on park benches has created an entirely new norm for acceptable worker environments just because the boundaries of the office space no longer have to be respected — one where it doesn’t matter where you are or what you’re doing, as long as you’re connected, you’re deemed available for work-related matters. Which prompts the awkward question: how long until we find ourselves providing not just our personal capital, data, energy and time on voluntary grounds to our corporate overlords but paying them a tribute for their protection as well? You might say, well, that’s a slightly far-fetched concept at this stage. We’d say, actually — it’s not too removed from the extreme profit maximisation strategies being applied to new business models in Silicon Valley tech lord world today.”