41–50 of 121 posts
RTO seems to have nothing to do with the warehouse workers asking for a piddly $25/hour and health and safety guarantees. It's flabberghasting that the union votes keep failing.
I wonder what drives these decisions? Is there that much solid evidence that they get more value out of people in the office rather than home? Or are there other reasons like tax incentives that encourage in-person work over remote? Is this just a control thing or or there a compelling argument that I am missing?
One possible reason might be commercial real estate investments made by decision makers, who need these properties to remain valuable.
CRE firm lobbies local politicians that remote work is killing Main Street.
Local politicians attach tax breaks/incentives for companies with office workers.
Companies mandate RTO to save some tax money while unwittingly being a toadie for commercial real estate.
The key difference being that the people mandating RTO aren't biased because of their own investments in CRE.
Amazon tech workers should unionize.
Amazon tech workers should unionize.
But if employees at Amazon wanted to unionize, I think the company could make several good guesses why, all of them true.
As for the return to office aspect: if employees - especially those with families that live in homes that are only affordable or available further away - have to lose 1-2 hours commuting each way, then yes they do deserve additional compensation to make up for the RTO policy. I’m sure Andy Jassy won’t recognize that or offer it up though. He and Jeff Bezos share a view that work life balance is “debilitating” (https://www.savvydime.com/jeff-bezos-believes-work-life-bala...) and Bezos has used code phrases before that suggest he favors young workers - which may be why this policy will hurt older workers and those with children the most.
I wonder what drives these decisions? Is there that much solid evidence that they get more value out of people in the office rather than home? Or are there other reasons like tax incentives that encourage in-person work over remote? Is this just a control thing or or there a compelling argument that I am missing?
Why does there need to be something "driving the decision"?
You may as well ask why I want my cleaner to descale the bottom of my taps. There may well be no reason beyond aesthetic preference.
Maybe it's not more profitable or less profitable. Maybe it's within margin of error, and maybe the people running Amazon for the most part prefer working in an office.
With less middle managers, the executives are probably thinking they'll need individual contributors physically present in order to monitor them effectively.
I still can't imagine why anyone agrees to work at a place that treats it's employees like children.