I know most people here would find this drastic, but I agree with you. We already have things like OSHA to regulate workplace safety procedures. We legislate things about break times, overtime, etc.

I think creating a specification that office workers must be given a certain measurable protection against general workplace noise and a certain minimum of private floorspace in which to work, would be quite reasonable.

I wonder if a change.org petition or something would be worthwhile.

I tried making a poll to gauge interest in the possibility of a petition or general support for disallowing open-plan offices, but it quickly dropped out of the first page of “new” posts...

< https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17558732 >