It’s old news, but since 2019 the U.S. now has three times its former number of remote workers. Furthermore, an astounding 97.6 percent of employees want that option to remain at least partially on the table for the remainder of their careers.

But how compatible is this with the American work culture? After all, we’ve gone through immense changes in the workforce, with labor laws and regulations being a fairly recent addition, from a historical standpoint. In 1886, the American Federation of Labor (AFL) came into existence, regulating and considerably improving conditions for skilled workers while still holding onto American ideals. Then came the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW) international labor union in 1905—the “Wobblies”—to represent nonskilled, women, and minority workers, as well as skilled trades.

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