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Amazon corporate workers plan walkout next week over return-to-office policies

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Re: Amazon corporate workers plan walkout next week over return-to-office policies

#81

Post by sakopov »

gregwebs wrote: post #50

During the pandemic I had an initial meeting with a hiring manager at Amazon that didn’t care that I was multiple time zones away from her office. Even though the official policy was actually return to office when pandemic conditions change. Luckily I didn’t want to go through their interview process- I’m guessing I would have gotten axed in the layoffs for being newer on the team and not being able to come to the of…

I have a friend who was hired in 2019, moved to a city with Amazon office and then moved back in 2021 while keeping his job. He still works at Amazon and is fully remote indefinitely. From what he had told me, this is only impacting those who work within commuting distance of an Amazon office. Those who were hired as remote employees or relocated during pandemic years were pretty much grandfathered into fully remote roles.

Re: Amazon corporate workers plan walkout next week over return-to-office policies

#82

Post by s1artibartfast »

krainboltgreene wrote: post #73
TexanFeller wrote: post #52

These protesters are just going to accelerate outsourcing. If companies can't get the benefits of in-office Americans and are forced into having a remote workforce they might as well get them for 1/4 of the price from Central and South America.

This kind of sentiment is both in tech and also in every other field that has or could have unionization, and it's never true.

You tell that to car manufacturers in Detroit.

Re: Amazon corporate workers plan walkout next week over return-to-office policies

#83

Post by Freedom2 »

jgalt212 wrote: post #77
neom wrote: post #13

I still think out of all the...unique... things Elon has said... work from home is morally wrong has to take the cake. I try to spend time looking at things as radically as I can. I think it's helpful to accept folks views as widely as possible, but I'm still trying to wrap my head around work from home being morally wrong. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y5OHFt8QyiU I was on a bicycle ride listening to this intervie…

[flagged]

Working in a separate place than your home is a recent concept - humanity has worked from home far longer than in offices or workplaces. Consider farming, or craftspeople working their trade, as well as nomadic cultures.

In what way is WFH 'unnatural'?

Re: Amazon corporate workers plan walkout next week over return-to-office policies

#84

Post by s1artibartfast »

superfrank wrote: post #78
cebert wrote: post #5

I’m so proud of these workers uniting and fighting back on RTO mandates. It has been proven that knowledge workers can work productively and efficiently without being required to be in the office a set number of days.

> It has been proven that knowledge workers can work productively and efficiently without being required to be in the office a set number of days. I'm a big proponent of "I don't care where you work as long as your work gets done" and have been since before covid, but I haven't come across anything that actually proves that, so... source? If there's a good study out there that shows that that is true, I'd love to see…

It's obviously not true as a generalization. If your job is bolting together cars, you can't work from home effectively. There might be some individuals and job classes that can do it effectively

Re: Amazon corporate workers plan walkout next week over return-to-office policies

#85

Post by ballenf »

the_only_law wrote: post #24
908B64B197 wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

He's hedging his bets by not paying rent for Twitter's offices.

Maybe someone can help me understand this. If I were to refuse to pay my rent. My landlord would post an eviction notice and if I refused to comply, I would likely be arrested or forcibly removed. Why can’t the landlord “evict” twitter? Does the process look significantly different for commercial real estate? Does twitter provide value to the landlord in some form other than rent? Maybe they’re afraid of bad PR?

Having run a small business for some years, refusal to pay an uncontested debt is (very unfortunately) a routine part of business and negotiation. It's a very ugly part, but creates a bit of a prisoner's dilemma where you wonder if you're the only sucker paying debts on time and in full.

Re: Amazon corporate workers plan walkout next week over return-to-office policies

#86

Post by kcplate »

vkou wrote: post #17
throwaway675309 wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

His argument also boils down to the idea that since other jobs such as manufacturing require employees to be on site, that all jobs should have the same requirement. Smh... Also the idea of a ruthless capitalistic multibillionaire invoking morality as a defense is just kafkaesque.

I like his argument, and I would like to extend it to something like 'Since some people get through life on a salary of $7.75/hr (Or less), we should take away Elon's billions of dollars.' It'd only be fair - he can, after all, do well without all the comforts and power that his wealth affords him.

I think it would also be a reasonable accommodation to just cut the SWE’s salaries down to 10% below the lowest end salary of the manufacturing workers who have to be in person to do their job and let the SWEs do their job remote.

But I expect that may not be a popular opinion here on HN, though.

Re: Amazon corporate workers plan walkout next week over return-to-office policies

#87

Post by moneywoes »

lettergram wrote: post #38
neom wrote: post #13

I still think out of all the...unique... things Elon has said... work from home is morally wrong has to take the cake. I try to spend time looking at things as radically as I can. I think it's helpful to accept folks views as widely as possible, but I'm still trying to wrap my head around work from home being morally wrong. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y5OHFt8QyiU I was on a bicycle ride listening to this intervie…

I have a farm and work remotely. I'm awake 18 hrs a day, spend 6 with my family & 12 working -- 8 for tech job, 4 for farm. I do this 6 days a week. I'm insanely productive by most metrics (many many launched products, side gigs, work 1.5 jobs, etc). I schedule my day down to 15 min increments (though obviously, adjustments are always made). Remote work affords me that opportunity and I work as hard as anyone. It's f…

How do you do this 15 minute scheduling, google calendar?

Re: Amazon corporate workers plan walkout next week over return-to-office policies

#88

Post by taftster »

jgalt212 wrote: post #77
neom wrote: post #13

I still think out of all the...unique... things Elon has said... work from home is morally wrong has to take the cake. I try to spend time looking at things as radically as I can. I think it's helpful to accept folks views as widely as possible, but I'm still trying to wrap my head around work from home being morally wrong. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y5OHFt8QyiU I was on a bicycle ride listening to this intervie…

[flagged]

I'm not even following this, "Unnatural" ...

Work from Home - Throughout the ages of man, I would tend to believe that more work has been done at home than at any notion of modern workplace. Farming, milling, iron working, etc. have all historically been performed by small tradesmen working out of their homes. "Go to Joe's house if you want your horses shoed."

Home School - Again, I would argue that far more children throughout history are being school at home than in a western notion of traditional school. I would wager that even today, more kids are currently "at home" schooling across the globe than in a modern school.

Interest Rates - Maybe this one is a reasonable notion of "unnatural". But again, throughout all time, bartering has dominated merchant exchanges and simple currency exchanges (through precious metals). There has probably always been a notion of interest rates in all this, but what you're describing is more about the federal reserve's interest rates and fractional banking, which is quite a modern invention.

In all, I don't think anything about work from home, home schooling or making transactions with neighbors is unnatural. If anything, it's the most natural way that society has worked and existed throughout history.

Re: Amazon corporate workers plan walkout next week over return-to-office policies

#89

Post by moneywoes »

seattle_spring wrote: post #68
TexanFeller wrote: post #52

These protesters are just going to accelerate outsourcing. If companies can't get the benefits of in-office Americans and are forced into having a remote workforce they might as well get them for 1/4 of the price from Central and South America.

This has been a bogeyman for software engineers for multiple decades, all while salaries have increased considerably.

Does the hockey stick growth of companies like Deel today not change things?

Re: Amazon corporate workers plan walkout next week over return-to-office policies

#90

Post by LapsangGuzzler »

otterley wrote: post #79
LapsangGuzzler wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There’s no way that someone as wealthy as he doesn’t own at least some commercial property. Even if not himself, Tesla alone owns billions in CRE, not to mention his other companies. Commercial properties are some of the most valuable assets a company owns, of course the guy wants to keep CRE values up. Just because he owns some transportation companies doesn’t mean he’s allergic to CRE, that’s kinda naive. That’s li…

Counterpoint: Berkshire Hathaway owns practically no commercial real estate assets.

But they definitely own a ton of stock in companies that own real estate. 10 percent of their portfolio is in Bank of America, which has a huge commercial real estate lending portfolio. Berkshire doesn’t need to own CRE directly when they own companies that do CRE.

Commercial real estate is foundational in corporate finance. I guess I just don’t this argument that these huge companies aren’t somehow exposed. I guarantee you that if the CRE market tanks, Berkshire is gonna feel it too.

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