There should be a law that says for absolutely every job whatsoever, you are on the clock as soon as you leave your home, and 100% of all commuting expenses must be reimbursed by the employer. If employers expect you to travel to a particular place to work, they should pay for all of it including your time. The only reason this doesn't make perfect sense is because the insanity of commuting on your own dime has been normalized.
If such a law were in place almost no company would ask any employee to commute anywhere unless it were absolutely necessary. Return to office is really easy for them to ask for when they aren't the ones who have to pay for it.
This would just mean that people living farther away would have a harder time finding jobs, or negotiating salary/promotions, because they are more expensive for their employer. Yes you could have laws making it illegal to discriminate based on commute distance, but you know that employers would find other pretexts.
I can see commuting being regarded as a total time waste requiring employer compensation in the US, where most people commuting are driving. But in countries where commuting is done via public transportation, the time spent commuting can be productively used for personal improvement in the form of reading.
Only in some cases. Often public transport at commuting hours is too crowded to practically do so, or is a bus rather than a train so that many people would get travel sick if they tried to read.
In Japan workers comp insurance covers commute by law.
Because of this, it is common for companies to get a cheaper policy that does not cover car commutes and set a company policy requiring employees to walk, bike or take public transit.
I arrived at this conclusion too after 3 years of smart working, it's unreasonable to have today an obliged/implicit sacrifice of time and money that's commuting to the work place.
Don't most people take into account requirements to commute when negotiating salary before taking a job? It should already be baked into pay.
I get some people were hired without any understanding of that during/after the pandemic and sometimes offices move, but that seems like when to renegotiate.
If such a law were in place almost no company would ask any employee to commute anywhere unless it were absolutely necessary. Return to office is really easy for them to ask for when they aren't the ones who have to pay for it.