Why RTO makes sense,
People working at companies like Zoom typically get large sums of RSUs. These RSUs typically start to vest at 1 year and then continue to vest for 2-3 years. By forcing people to go into the office, some of these people will leave, forfeiting any non-vested RSUs. This allows companies to do layoffs without the cost associated.
Salary. These companies will just hire new bodies with lower salaries and higher RSU packages that will vest over longer time with the goal of saving money in the immediate now that debt is no longer cheap.
Training/Mentoring require more effort remotely.
Corporate real estate.
Why RTO doesn't make sense,
Many companies like Zoom have offices scattered across the country. The tech company I work for, for example, me and 3 colleagues are the only ones near my local office in a team of 80. My manager is in another state and most of my 80+ member team are in other states or countries (follow the sun posture). Any internal meeting I have to have would have to be done over Zoom.
Consultant companies like PWC are doing much more consultant hours virtually instead of traveling to clients because clients don't want to spend the extra billable for the travel, which is a key indicator that remote work isn't the detriment that it's being made out to be.
Open office floor plans make productivity worse.
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Personally I will never take a job again that requires office time, I much prefer meeting up with coworkers for dinner every couple months over forced "teambuilding"
We can hold someone responsible for their own actions while still acknowledging that people are a product of their own environment and try to study and address the underlying societal/economic conditions that led to these situations occurring in the first place.
Literally happened twice in 3 months at the FAANG adjacent security company I work at, and it played out exactly like this. Management said that they were deemed "insider threat risks" and terminated, each within a week of publicly declaring intentions to try and unionize.
I'm not even in a position that unionizing would even benefit me, and I wouldn't want to join one in my current role, but it's so blatantly obvious bullshit what companies can get away with.