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Backlash over Amazon's return to office comes as workers demand higher wages

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Re: Backlash over Amazon's return to office comes as workers demand higher wages

#51

Post by kridsdale3 »

i_am_jl wrote: post #43
Tade0 wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One possible reason might be commercial real estate investments made by decision makers, who need these properties to remain valuable.

The chain is a little longer, and a little less intentional, IME. 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…

Amazon does own (what feels like) half of downtown Seattle. I think in this case they do have a strong 1st party incentive.

Re: Backlash over Amazon's return to office comes as workers demand higher wages

#52

Post by blackeyeblitzar »

jmward01 wrote: post #10

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?

There is certainly no data, even though Amazon has a reputation for being data driven. Amazon has tried hard to not talk about it, but friends who work there said that their internal surveys let any employee see the results, and that Amazon’s own data shows that remote work is actually more productive. So instead of admitting that, the company’s leaders like Andy Jassy have come up with vague claims like the office environment is better for culture or collaboration or brainstorming. In reality, all of this is probably just a boring way to force a layoff without a WARN notice or severance.

Re: Backlash over Amazon's return to office comes as workers demand higher wages

#53

Post by joshvm »

jmward01 wrote: post #10

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?

For workers there are usually some tax benefits to home offices, though it's not a huge amount in practice. In the UK you can offset things like partial utility costs, but only for fully remote.

https://www.gov.uk/tax-relief-for-employees/working-at-home

Re: Backlash over Amazon's return to office comes as workers demand higher wages

#54

Post by conk »

snapcaster wrote: post #19
golemiprague wrote: post #2

The advantage of working from home was that you could take care of kids and do all the housework, this worth thousands of dollars per months. For years companies didn't adjust salaries in accordance to inflation and the cost of outsourcing kids care and house care, all that while keeping interest rate low and bailing rich bankers with printing of money. This caused funneling of wealth from the workers to asset holder…

Isn't this kind of proving the point of RTO from the company's point of view? If you're taking care of your child and doing housework instead of working?

The work still gets done or the employee gets fired. Also, just because someones in an office doesn’t mean they're working.

Re: Backlash over Amazon's return to office comes as workers demand higher wages

#55

Post by blackeyeblitzar »

cut3 wrote: post #17

Amazon tech workers should unionize.

One reason they don’t is because they’re afraid of ways in which a union might hurt them. For example many unions become overly political and involve in issues that aren’t just fighting for wages and benefits (like taking on social justice issues). Many unions have tenure based rules that they negotiate to privilege some workers above others. Many unions end up becoming so hostile in their view of the company, that they end up hurting the company and limiting everyone’s income instead of working together in a more balanced way. I think even now, the perception (even if it is wrong) is that all the possible negatives are worse than the possible benefits like fighting RTO policies.

Re: Backlash over Amazon's return to office comes as workers demand higher wages

#56

Post by ambicapter »

i_am_jl wrote: post #43
Tade0 wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One possible reason might be commercial real estate investments made by decision makers, who need these properties to remain valuable.

The chain is a little longer, and a little less intentional, IME. 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…

> Local politicians attach tax breaks/incentives for companies with office workers.

Has that actually happened?

Re: Backlash over Amazon's return to office comes as workers demand higher wages

#57

Post by kimixa »

letitgo12345 wrote: post #21
nightfly wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's a sneaky way of doing layoffs, everyone who won't comply has to "quit"

It's an excellent way of getting your best people who have options to quit while the worst ones who don't are forced to stick around

Those "best people" may also be some of the higher paid - so if you only care about short term results that may be more of a feature than a bug.

Re: Backlash over Amazon's return to office comes as workers demand higher wages

#58

Post by ghaff »

i_am_jl wrote: post #43
Tade0 wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One possible reason might be commercial real estate investments made by decision makers, who need these properties to remain valuable.

The chain is a little longer, and a little less intentional, IME. 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…

I do think there's probably a lot of political pressure on employers to not just abandon downtowns. And some do outright own a lot of real estate which puts them in a somewhat difficult position of probably writing down investments. But my first-hand observation in that employers who lease are just not renewing in at least a number of cases.

Re: Backlash over Amazon's return to office comes as workers demand higher wages

#59

Post by xyst »

jmward01 wrote: post #10

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?

> what drives these decisions

I watched a replay of a billionaire summit/conference once. They get these ideas in those echo chambers and bring back anecdotal evidence to the company and represent it as empirical fact.

> Is there that much solid evidence that they get more value out of people in the office rather than home?

Nope

> Or are there other reasons like tax incentives that encourage in-person work over remote?

In the corporate real estate sector, there were grumblings about incentives to companies. Basically, if you stay or extend the contract then we will improve the space “for free” or reduced rate.

> Is this just a control thing or or there a compelling argument that I am missing?

Some say it has to do with future layoffs. There are hints that AMZN is going to layoff people anyways but instead of having to pay out severance. They put these shitty policies in place to nudge people towards leaving on their own accord and thus paying out severance package.

Have seen this at a previous company. Unfortunately the people that do leave tend to be the people that you really want to stay. Almost the “anchor beings” of the team so to speak. Those people tend to find new jobs relatively quickly and the people you are left to work with simply just cannot replace those that left.

Velocity decreases. Management rushes to hire and push through the ranks with not so qualified individuals. Velocity further decreases because of the increased training and onboarding of a very inexperienced persons. People get annoyed all over. Veterans begin to slowly drop every month. New people begin to leave as well (within a year). Management then hires the worst off shore contractors. Velocity decreases further. Regression bugs, new bugs increases. Stability of application or platform is questionable.

Honestly these B-grade MBA losers are just clueless. This is all just a game to them every quarter so they can get their precious golden parachute or minimally meet the boards bonus requirements. These same losers then get rotated through various companies.

See CrowdStrike CEO, and Google CEO

Re: Backlash over Amazon's return to office comes as workers demand higher wages

#60

Post by glial »

lurkshark wrote: post #39
kelseyfrog wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's a thought, but ceteris paribus, software engineers seem to have a particular scorn for unions beyond the calculus of economics. In other words, there is a personality/sub-cultural disdain for unions. I see it as an extension of a distaste for bureaucracy or perhaps, social structures in general, but I'm open to other perspectives.

Sometimes I wonder if you framed it differently would it be more appealing to tech workers. Like if there was a startup that negotiates on behalf of employees for salary, benefits, remote vs in-office, etc. using collective influence as more people from a particular company used it. Or to put it another way, how much of the distaste for unions is wrapped up in the term “union”?

> if there was a startup that negotiates on behalf of employees for salary, benefits, remote vs in-office, etc. using collective influence as more people from a particular company used it.

I...love this idea. And end-users could pay them dues, excuse me, fees for the service.

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