Yet judging by recent commentary, business leaders are still worked up about remote work. It cant just be work from another locationits too popular to be harmless. Even Malcom Gladwell, a writer known to work from his couch and coffee shops, said that working from home is not in our best interest. 

Everyone has opinions about remote work, myself included. Since joining my employer Topia in 2016, I have had the best of both worlds. Although I mainly work from our office in Tallinn, Estonia, my home base, I have worked remotely from Iceland, Norway, Finland, Italy, Nepal, the UK, and France. I credit remote work with my mental well-being and life balance (dont judge until youve spent winter in Estonia).

Because I manage products for global talent mobility (business travel, relocations, distributed workforces, etc.), I speak frequently with CEOs and HR leaders who fear that remote work is a looming disaster. Their fears largely stem from false assumptions.

Assumption #1: Remote workers are unproductive

When lockdowns closed offices in the early days of the pandemic, many employers made their mistrust of remote work clear. Some implemented surveillance software that monitors employees through their communications, application usage, and webcams. More recently, Elon Musk told Tesla employees they can either work 40 hours per week from an office or pretend to work somewhere else.  Data collected since the pandemic suggests that Musk has it wrong.

Stanford researcher Nick Bloom, who has studied work from home since 2004, finds that remote work translates into more time working. On average, of the 70 minutes saved by not commuting, employees spend 30 minutes on extra work. Other studies concur: Remote work either has no negative effect on productivity or slightly improves it.  

To be fair, people can be productive at something that isnt important. Data from Qatalag and GitLab suggests that remote workers waste 67 minutes every day proving to colleagues that they are available and working (for example, by posting memes in Slack). But doesnt that behavior say more about management and culture than remote work itself? If managers treat availability during arbitrary hours as more important than hitting meaningful KPIs, employees will fake 67 minutes of work for a good review no matter where theyre located.

Lest we forget, a 2016 survey found that during an average eight-hour day, U.K. office workers believe they did just under three hours of actual work. Whether done remotely or in person, a job is whatever management incentivizes employees to produce. 

Assumption #2: Remote work across borders is an unmanageable compliance mess

Companies often reject remote work policies based on risk. They fear that if employees are permitted to work from home, its a slippery slope. Theyll end up in French chalets and Italian villas, masking their location with Zoom backgrounds and VPNs. Inevitably, theyll break immigration laws, create tax exposure, violate labor regulations, and establish legal entities in random countries.

Heres the reality: Only a few workers can actually spend a month abroad or go full nomad. Family obligations, finances, health, and passports limit how freely someone can travel. For the sake of argument, though, lets imagine a CEO announces on a whim, Work from anywhere you want! Should HR have a heart attack?

Lets consider immigration risk first. My team at Topia has documented 69 countries where many people can work remotely without immigration sponsorship. 21 of theseincluding Brazil, Canada, France, and Thailanddo not consider temporary remote work to be work for the purposes of needing immigration work permits.  

In another 20 countriessuch as Iceland, Germany, India, and New Zealandit is understood that if your primary reason for visiting is not work, then you may work remotely (during an extended vacation, for instance). Come for the fjords, stay for the WiFi. Some 28 other countries (and counting) offer remote work visas to employees. Which country wouldnt want affluent knowledge workers to come and spend money? The U.S. and Australia, apparently. 

So, about a third of the worlds countries welcome if not promote remote work. The U.S. is another story. If an employee lives in Denver, Colorado, and spends one month at an Airbnb elsewhere in Colorado, no problem. If that Colorado employee makes over $3,500 while working during a vacation anywhere in California, for any amount of time, they owe California income tax on that compensation. Their employer has a duty to withhold taxes accordingly. Every U.S. state has different rules about tax exposurehence the complexity.

In surveys we conducted between 2020 and 2022, roughly a third of employees admitted to working remotely outside their home state or country, but only a third of those employees said they reported all those days to HR.

At the same time, 91% of employees said they are comfortable with having their location tracked down to the city level, which is all an employer needs to comply with tax and immigration laws worldwide. The message from employees to employers is simple: Do whatever you need for compliance, just dont burden us with paperwork. 

So no, compliance is not a reason to reject remote work or work from anywhere. Employers can steer employees to the many locations that welcome remote workers and use technology to manage risks if they do arise. 

Assumption #3: Sooner or later, most people will return to the office full time

Some employers assume that remote work is a pandemic fad and want to see that tide turn. Even Google, a purveyor of software that makes remote work productive and easy, has called workers back to the office (without much success). So have Tesla, Twitter, Apple, Comcast, Shake Shack, and others. Sure, they can threaten workers who refuse to complybut that is likely to backfire. 

Of the 125 million full-time jobs in America, 60 million can be done from home, according to Gallup. In other words, about half the jobs in an advanced economy are remote-friendly. Every survey I come acrossfrom McKinsey, Gallup, Buffer, and Owl Labs, among othersfinds mass support for remote work. In Topias 2022 survey, 94% of knowledge employees agreed that they should be able to work from anywhere, so long as they get their work done.  

How serious are employees about this? In payroll platform ADPs global survey of 32,000 workers, 64% said that they would consider looking for a new job if they were required to return to the office full time. CareerBuilder says that remote and flexible jobs listed on its platform received seven times more applications than in-office jobs.

Everyone has different motivations for wanting flexibility in where they workbut there might be a common thread. Going into the pandemic, Americans in particular were increasingly burnt out and overworked. By 2019, more than half of Americans werent using their vacation benefits and collectively left 768 million days unused (4.9 days per worker). Whether it was guilt or fear of using too many unlimited vacation days, people pretended to love the #hustle, as if the value of their lives could be measured in work hours.

Then came COVID-19. People faced daily, unavoidable reminders of their mortality. Locked down and no longer commuting, knowledge workers had more time and could choose how to spend it. Countless people picked up new hobbies and habits. People reengaged with loved ones (or disappeared into their screens). 

Then the realization hit: If I dont need to be in the office, why do I need to be cooped up in this overpriced city apartment with my partner and two kids? The exodus to small cities, mountain towns, and beach resorts began. 

Words like autonomy and flexibility were no longer empty corporate propaganda. Employees were exercising both through their choice of location, hours of work, and lifestyles. No employer can take those away without pushback. 

Facing the data, its hard to bet against remote work. Remote work is not a fad, and not even a recession is likely to change that. 

Remote work might be a privilege reserved for computer workers. Still, privileges have a way of becoming entrenched. Workers will increasingly view flexibility as a basic labor right, alongside time off and health care. The 70-minute commute to be distracted in a noisy office will become harder and harder to justify. 

Eventually, a workday at the kitchen table, in the in-laws basement, or in the mountain Airbnb wont be remote work. Itll just be work. It has been all along. 

Chantel Rowe is the VP of product management at Topia.

The opinions expressed in Fortune.com commentary pieces are solely the views of their authors and do not necessarily reflect the opinions and beliefs of Fortune.

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Newsroom employees and other members of The NewsGuild of New York say they are fed up with bargaining that has dragged on since their last contract expired in March 2021. The union announced last week that more than 1,100 employees would stage a 24-hour work stoppage starting at 12:01 a.m. ET Thursday unless the two sides reach a contract deal.

The NewsGuild tweeted Thursday morning that workers, are now officially on work stoppage, the first of this scale at the company in 4 decades. Its never an easy decision to refuse to do work you love, but our members are willing to do what it takes to win a better newsroom for all.

Negotiations took place Tuesday and some of Wednesday, but the sides remained far apart on issues including wage increases and remote-work policies.

On Wednesday evening the union said via Twitter that a deal had not been reached and the walkout was happening. We were ready to work for as long as it took to reach a fair deal, it said, but management walked away from the table with five hours to go.

We know what were worth, the union added.

But New York Times spokesperson Danielle Rhoades Ha said in a statement that they were still in negotiations when they were told that the strike was happening.

It is disappointing that they are taking such an extreme action when we are not at an impasse, she said.

It was unclear how Thursdays coverage would be affected, but the strikes supporters include members of the fast-paced live-news desk, which covers breaking news for the digital paper. Employees were planning a rally for that afternoon outside the newspapers offices near Times Square.

Rhoades Ha told The Associated Press the company has solid plans in place to continue producing content, including relying on international reporters and other journalists who are not union members.

In a note sent to guild-represented staff Tuesday night, Deputy Managing Editor Cliff Levy called the planned strike puzzling and an unsettling moment in negotiations over a new contract. He said it would be the first strike by the bargaining unit since 1981 and comes despite intensifying efforts by the company to make progress.

But in a letter signed by more than 1,000 employees, the NewsGuild said management has been dragging its feet bargaining for nearly two years and time is running out to reach a fair contract by the end of the year.

The NewsGuild also said the company told employees planning to strike they would not get paid for the duration of the walkout. Members were also asked to work extra hours get work done ahead of the strike, according to the union.

The New York Times has seen other, shorter walkouts in recent years, including a half-day protest in August by a new union representing technology workers who claimed unfair labor practices.

In one breakthrough that both sides called significant, the company backed off its proposal to replace the existing adjustable pension plan with an enhanced 401 (k) retirement plan. The Times offered instead to let the union choose between the two. The company also agreed to expand fertility treatment benefits.

Levy said the company has also offered to raise wages by 5.5% upon ratification of the contract, followed by 3% hikes in 2023 and 2024. That would be an increase from the 2.2% annual increases in the expired contract.

Stacy Cowley, a finance reporter and union representative, said the union is seeking 10% pay raises at ratification, which she said would make up for raises not received over the past two years.

She also said the union wants the contract to guarantee employees the option to work remotely some of the time, if their roles allow for it, but the company wants the right to recall workers to the office full time. Cowley said the Times has required its staff to be in office three days a week but many have been showing up less often in an informal protest.

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Balwani was convicted in July of fraud and conspiracy connected to the companys bogus medical technology that duped investors and endangered patients. His sentencing came less than three weeks after Elizabeth Holmes, the companys founder and CEO, received more than 11 years in prison for her part in the scheme, which has been dissected in a book, HBO documentary and award-winning TV series.

Balwanis sentence was less than the 15 years sought by federal prosecutors, who depicted him as a ruthless, power-hungry figure. But it is substantially longer than the four to 10 months sought by his lawyers.

The scandal revolved around the companys false claims to have developed a device that could scan for hundreds of diseases and other potential problems with just a few drops of blood taken with a finger prick.

After years of promoting the technology, Holmes and Balwani were warned that the blood tests were inaccurate, but they continued to raise money from investors, including from billionaires such as software magnate Larry Ellison and media magnate Rupert Murdoch, and deployed the technology in some Walgreens stores.

U.S. District Judge Edward Davila said the financial statements drawn up by Balwani werent just projections, they were lies and a true flight from honest business practices.

The case threw a bright light on Silicon Valleys dark side, exposing how its culture of hype and boundless ambition could veer into lies.

Both Holmes, 38, and Balwani, 57, could have gotten up to 20 years in prison. Balwani spent six years as Theranos chief operating officer while remaining romantically involved with Holmes until a bitter split in 2016.

Former federal prosecutor Amanda Kramer said the harsher sentence seemed appropriate, given that the jury in Balwanis trial convicted him on every count while jurors in Holmes separate case acquitted her on some charges and deadlocked on others.

Its not surprising that he got a more severe sentence because his misconduct was was more severe, Kramer said.

While on the witness stand in her trial, Holmes accused Balwani of manipulating her through years of emotional and sexual abuse. Balwanis attorney has denied the allegations.

Federal prosecutors also want the judge to order Balwani to pay $804 million in restitution to defrauded investors the same amount sought from Holmes. Davila deferred a decision on restitution to a later hearing, just as he did during Holmes Nov. 18 sentencing, when she received 11 1/4 years in prison.

In court documents, Balwanis lawyers painted him as a hardworking immigrant who moved from India to the U.S. during the 1980s to become the first member of his family to attend college. He graduated from the University of Texas in 1990 with a degree in information systems.

He later moved to Silicon Valley, where he first worked as a computer programmer for Microsoft before founding an online startup that he sold for millions of dollars during the dot-com boom of the 1990s.

Balwani and Holmes met around the same time she dropped out of Stanford University to start Theranos in 2003. He became enthralled with her and her quest to revolutionize health care.

Balwanis lawyers said he eventually invested about $5 million in a stake in Theranos that eventually became worth about $500 million on paper a fraction of Holmes one-time fortune of of $4.5 billion.

That wealth evaporated after Theranos began to unravel in 2015 amid revelations that its blood-testing technology never worked as Holmes had boasted in glowing magazine articles that likened her to Silicon Valley visionaries such as Apple co-founder Steve Jobs.

Before Theranos downfall, Holmes teamed up with Balwani to raise nearly $1 billion from deep-pocketed investors.

Mr. Balwani is not the same as Elizabeth Holmes, his lawyers wrote in a memo to the judge. He actually invested millions of dollars of his own money; he never sought fame or recognition; and he has a long history of quietly giving to those less fortunate. Balwanis lawyers also asserted that Holmes was dramatically more culpable for the Theranos fraud.

Echoing similar claims made by Holmess lawyers before her sentencing, Balwanis attorneys also argued that he has been adequately punished by the intense media coverage of Theranos.

Balwani has lost his career, his reputation and his ability to meaningfully work again, his lawyers wrote.

Federal prosecutors cast Balwani as a ruthless, power-hungry accomplice in crimes that ripped off investors and imperiled people who received flawed results. The blood tests were to be available in a partnership with Walgreens that Balwani helped engineer.

Balwani presented a fake story about Theranos technology and financial stability day after day in meeting after meeting, the prosecutors wrote in their memo to the judge. Balwani maintained this façade of accomplishments, after making the calculated decision that honesty would destroy Theranos.

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