I don't think it's fair to call "you must be in the office 25% of the time" "required business travel." When I was dual-living in Los Angeles and Seattle, I was required "in the office" about 33% of the time. I wasn't the first person to do it, either - I had a coworker who lived in New Mexico for tax and sanity purposes but he also had a cabin up by big bear. When there was work, he was in LA. When there wasn't, he was either in Big Bear or south of Santa Fe, depending on the mood he and his wife were in. Cost of living for both of those properties was substantially less for LA. I worked with a great lady who would go and do these big scummy monumental reality TV shows and then retreat to her off-the-grid cabin in rural West Virginia - she cut her teeth doing local news in Charleston, WV (population 50k) but started making real money as an op on Jersey Shore. My former roommate is out of the country more often than in but is based in LA because it's where his friends are. Another friend uses Google Voice to appear as if he still lives in Santa Monica, rather than taking care of his parents' 500 acre farm on Lake Michigan. In all these cases, there's a very clear deal: "you can live anywhere but the work is here." Each and every one of us could have persisted in living in LA, but each and every one of us opted out (saved me about $1800 a month, others' mileage may vary).

And I don't know that it's fair to go after the mayor of Orrville. 1300 workers is about 5000 people once you loop in families; a town with a population of 9,000 is gonna feel that. It's not like Smuckers' workers are commuting with their families; that town has effectively experienced a 60% reduction in population (and tax base) and when "essential weeks" are on, they crawl back up to maybe 55%. That's frickin' existential, man. So his job? Is to find a company with 1300 workers that feels like moving into a husk of a town 20 miles south of Akron.

As to Smucker's, I guarantee their factory floor is a lot browner. Now here's the question: does this cause a bifurcation between the Morlocks and Eloi where the ruling class beams down from the mothership every four weeks to command the galley slaves? Or do the galley slaves start moving up and displacing the whip-holders because they're simply there more often? I think that's a thoroughly unresolved question with massive implications for the future of work in the United States.