In-office work can make a comeback. All big tech has to do is tell new college grads "you have to work in our office." They will agree. After a few years and all the remote workers are sidelined and not important.
This strikes me as a very strange take. Isn't it like saying "The 6 day workweek can make a comeback. All employers have to do is..."
The issue is that once a particular practice in relations between capital and labor becomes ingrained, conditions of competition make it very difficult to shift the balance. You would effectively have to have a non-competition agreement between big tech companies over this clause, because highly paid workers can and will leave for perks like remote work.
Not really. It's kind of what eroded the power of US industrial unions. In the 1970s many companies started hiring (with the grudging acceptance of the unions if their existing members got to keep their benefits) new workers with less benefits and less job security than previous workers. Within a generation the expectations for health plans, retirement, and paid vacations were reduced and the new workers if anything resented the older workers rather than their employers.
This is like saying offices can make a comeback after the industry went all in en masse for open plan. The stated reason for open plan was the mythical 'organic interaction,' but in reality it was reduced seating costs.
Remote work takes that those seating costs right to zero, and it's already been proven out with ample data demonstrating that productivity suffers little, if at all. There are a plethora of multi-billion companies that are 100% remote to really drive this point home.
In-office work isn't coming back any more than personal offices with doors for individual contributor engineers are coming back.
The issue is that once a particular practice in relations between capital and labor becomes ingrained, conditions of competition make it very difficult to shift the balance. You would effectively have to have a non-competition agreement between big tech companies over this clause, because highly paid workers can and will leave for perks like remote work.