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With the arrival of the coronavirus pandemic, the telecommuting matter took an unexpected turn worldwide, because from being an exceptional and atypical type of work, with a slow and moderate development in recent years, we've now seen an exponential and abrupt growth of teleworkers, as a consequence of the mandatory quarantines.
In fact, telecommuting became the most efficient and powerful tool that we had on hand to reduce the effects of the mandatory closures that have been applied in almost all the countries of the globe.
In that regard, it’s worth noting a study from the Covid-19 Observatory of the International Labour Organization, in which it was revealed that, during the second trimester of this year, 93% of the workers around the world lived in countries where suspensory measures of the work activities were applied (ILO, 2020).
Meaning coronavirus not only drove us towards telecommuting, but it also produced on it an effect so expansive and global as how the pandemic itself is turning out.
In the most developed countries, the number of remote workers managed to be as much as a third of the total number of people employed. In Spain, for example, which turned out to be one of the countries most affected by the pandemic and -by the way, also- one of the last nations to enact a law on remote work, it’s said 5% of teleworkers, regarding the total number of people employed, turned into 34% during May of 2020.
However, some think that when the pandemic ends, most workers will return to the offices and facilities. In fact, many of them have already been doing it as a consequence of the easing of quarantines. But there are some who also believe that -in the “new normal”- a significant number of workers could continue under the telecommuting modality because now both companies and workers have managed to know its advantages and learned to get around its obstacles.
For that reason, several countries have already been enacting laws on telecommuting, while others have undertaken the discussion of draft legislation to achieve the same goal.
Now, it’s known that the oldest historical antecedent of telecommuting is located in 1976, when the physicist and former NASA engineer, Jack Nilles, published –alongside other authors- his work titled: The Telecommunications-Transportation Tradeoff: Options for Tomorrow.
This book, listed by some, as the founding document of telecommuting, emerged as an alternative to overcome the economic problems caused by the Yom Kippur War of 1973 and, certainly, also, because of the oil crisis that struck as a consequence of that conflict.
It was in that context in which Nilles proposed to the United States a productive model with companies divided into satellite offices and remote employees. Each worker would provide their services from their own home and would report their work to the closest remote station, through a wired connection that would go from the computers of each satellite office to the screens located at the workers’ homes (ReasonWhy, 2020).
The goal was to significantly reduce the number of trips to work, so as to reach a substantial saving in energy consumption, so important and necessary in the days of the Arab Oil Embargo.
In fact, Nilles claimed in his remembered work that “if one in seven workers stopped having to commute to get to their jobs, the US wouldn't need to import more oil” (Nilles, 1976, quoted by Joric, 2020).
Nevertheless, the poor technology of the 70s didn’t allow for the dream to come true, although it was possible to sow the seed of telework and coin the term telecommuting, which is still used to identify the phenomenon in English.
The curious thing is that, almost 50 years later, the world was forced once again to resort to the telecommuting formula, this time, to face a pandemic.
Thus, the development of telecommuting appears to be more linked to the need to solve a crisis –energetic or sanitary- of the Contemporary Era, than to the fervent desire manifested by some, aimed at improving workers’ lives.
In fact, it’s not a secret to anyone that telecommuting has been out of unions' agendas and, therefore, also, far from being a “conquest” of the workers' movement. On the contrary, the relocation of workers has been seen as a real threat towards trade unions, which origin was directly related to the large agglomerations of workers that took place in the factories of the first two industrial revolutions.
Neither has telecommuting been used with the intention of increasing the productivity of companies and by no means as a generalized policy to preserve the environment, although both circumstances have -always- been pointed out as part of its countless advantages.
Then, coronavirus had to arrive in order to make us take the issue seriously, although many countries already had the technological capability to implement telecommuting 20 years ago –at least-.
That’s why, in regards to telecommuting, it must be recognized that the Third (or Fourth) Industrial Revolution hasn’t been as disruptive as expected, at least –not- until the day coronavirus hit us. Because, in fact, just like what happened with electricity or television, telecommuting was taking decades to expand massively.
But that situation took a 180-degree turn with the pandemic. Because now telecommuting is getting all the attention from labor relations and has become the trending topic of labor law.
Nevertheless, the telecommuting resulting from the health emergency resulted pretty differently from the one we once imagined, first of all, because it wasn't a product of a mutual agreement between social actors. But, also, because in most cases it was carried out in a way as messy as it is chaotic.
However and despite this, the pandemic became a fabulous experiment to observe the problems associated with the phenomenon, as well as to prove the countless advantages it could bring us.
In fact, according to an Upwork study, people who teleworked during the first months of the pandemic in the USA saved –in total- about 758 million dollars per day (Pauta, 2020).
In the meantime, the reduction of costs related to car repairs meant an additional saving of 183 million dollars per day, to which 164 million dollars were also added –per day- by the concept of accidents and pollution (Pauta, 2020).
Furthermore, some statistical studies have revealed that at least two-thirds of workers wish to continue teleworking, especially those between 25 and 45 years of age.
In short, coronavirus gave us a golden opportunity to catapult telecommuting, because currently –unlike the 70s- we have enough technology to develop it massively.
Nevertheless, if we want to have success in that mission, two tasks seem essential and urgent:
The first one is the overcoming of the so-called “digital divide”, to bring Internet access to the more than 4 billion people who still, according to the World Bank, do not have access to the network (World Bank, 2016).
And the second one is to retake the concept of “flexicurity” that was coined from the Green Paper about the modernization of the labor law to face the challenges of the XXI century, published by the European Commission in 2006.
Because, in fact, it’s often said that “telecommuting can only survive in flexible environments.” And for the person writing this, that’s a strong and clear message for labor law, which now will have the great responsibility and the immense challenge of keeping a perfect balance between the proper protection of the teleworker and a healthy flexibility through which telecommuting keeps being promoted among entrepreneurs.
References
World Bank (2016). Digital Dividends. Broad Overview.
Retrieved from: http://documents1.worldbank.org/curated/en/658821468186546535/pdf/102724-WDR-WDR2016Overview-SPANISH-WebResBox-394840B-OUO-9.pdf
Joric, Carlos (2020). Telecommuting was born out of another crisis. La Vanguardia.
Retrieved from: https://www.lavanguardia.com/historiayvida/historiacontemporanea/20200521/481297391719/teletrabajo-covid19-crisis-petroleo-sociedad-consumo.html
International Labour Organization (2020). Covid-19 Observatory of the ILO. COVID-19 and the world of work. Fifth edition.
Retrieved from: https://www.ilo.org/wcmsp5/groups/public/---dgreports/---dcomm/documents/briefingnote/wcms_749470.pdf
Pauta (2020). Telecommuting has generated savings of $91 billion to Americans. Retrieved from: https://www.ilo.org/wcmsp5/groups/public/---dgreports/---dcomm/documents/briefingnote/wcms_749470.pdf https://n9.cl/celo
ReasonWhy (2020). We dive into the origin and the concept of Telecommuting. Retrieved from: https://www.reasonwhy.es/actualidad/teletrabajo-concepto-historia-legislacion-espana https://www.reasonwhy.es/actualidad/teletrabajo-concepto-historia-legislacion-espana
