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The fact that US labour laws are this weak is a travesty. You can just circumvent severance by making working conditions unpleasant and you don’t even need to h

The fact that US labour laws are this weak is a travesty. You can just circumvent severance by making working conditions unpleasant and you don’t even need to hide it.

wordofx 2y ago
No one is making the working conditions unpleasant. The company which pays you to do work wants its employees to be in the office. If you don’t like it. Don’t work there. Looks like all the employees about to lose their work from home jobs are upset and downvoting.
- Foobar8568 2y ago
  If your work contract and agreement has remote office, guess what? That's a breach of contract.
  - stickydicky 2y ago
    [dead]
  - b800h 2y ago
    I suspect Amazon know that and their contracts are worded accordingly.
    - Rebelgecko 2y ago
      Does Amazon even do contracts?
  - wordofx 2y ago
    That’s a contract. The vast majority of people currently working from home do not have a contract explicitly stating it’s a work from home position permanently. Those people who went from office to home during covid will have to go back to the office or they will be fired and receive nothing because they did not fill their role.
    - consteval 2y ago
      This is an extremely pro-business perspective. Just because they can do it doesn't mean they're correct, and we should just bend over and spread our cheeks for them. Certainly, we shouldn't beg for them to fuck us, but apparently some of us are really craving it.
      - wordofx 2y ago
        No. This is reality. Business’s provide a service or product. They pay people to perform tasks to deliver the service or product. Just because you want to work from home doesn’t mean you get to. Blue collar jobs don’t get the luxury of working from home. But apparently people like you feel like you’re above everyone else because you have a white collar job so you’re entitled to work from home. Get a grip. You don’t get to dictate every aspect of your job. Start your own business if you want to do things your way.
        consteval 2y ago
        > Get a grip Au Contraire, you should get a grip because you're being very pathetic. It's one thing to be contempt with actions that harm you. That's just sad. But actively begging for it is nothing short of pathetic. Call me entitled, I don't care. The reality is people like me end up happy and people like you ensure your own misery. It's so unbelievable that people don't even need to make you miserable - in the event you ever find yourself happy, you will do anything possible to make yourself miserable. We DO have some control over our jobs, and we CAN demand better. The only reason you have the life you have is because a lot of people before you demanded better. Just for you to be a weak coward who lays on his knees begging for his throat to get used. If that's what you want to be, fine. Objectively, you do yourself no favors. That's not my opinion, that's what it is. Nobody, and I do literally mean nobody, cares if you work hard or purposefully work at a business you do not like. Blue collar people don't give even half a fuck that you want to have as much, or as little, luxury as them. WFH people will not call you brave because you commute to the office. Instead, what happens is they continue their life MUCH happier than you, and you remain miserable by your own devices, and not a soul on Earth looks your way - not even for pity.
iknowstuff 2y ago
Is severance guaranteed by law? I don’t think it is in California at least
pfannkuchen 2y ago
Aren’t they just reverting to the same working conditions they had from the time they were founded until sometime in 2020? Circumventing severance here seems like quite an overstatement.
- faizshah 2y ago
  Amazon has one of the lowest average tenures in the industry. The number of engineers and teams that existed pre-2020 under those working conditions is tiny (except maybe the leadership teams). Once you have worked a remote/hybrid software job with a remote team you can’t put that genie back in the bottle (or something like that, that DHH said).
  - deleted 2y ago
    [deleted]
  - giamma 2y ago
    I have no direct experience, but apparently this is an historical problem. Way before the pandemic a friend of mine relocated to USA (from Italy) and started working for AWS as a product manager. She did not last much and eventually jumped to another big company. Sure the job was challenging in AWS, but what she was complaining the most about was the speed at which people were leaving and being replaced. She told me that she often had to schedule meetings with people from other teams/departments, sometimes 2-3 weeks in advance to find a free calendar slot, and when it was finally the date for the meeting, it often occurred that one of the invitees did not show up, without any prior notice, only for her to discover that the person resigned. So very often she had to reschedule the meeting with different people and wait another couple of weeks for them to be available. This made it very frustrating and difficult for her to get things going, as she was a product manager for a product that required a lot of cross-team collaboration.
- mathieuh 2y ago
  Well yes, if you disregard the fact that the last four years of realising that WFH is not only possible but preferable for workers happened. It's backsliding from a situation that was advantageous for many workers. For many people it's become non-negotiable that a job offer remote working. If where I worked mandated return-to-office I would immediately begin looking for somewhere else to work.
jedberg 2y ago
When I started at Amazon during the pandemic, I asked for something in writing saying my job was "work from home". They told me not to worry about it, because I'd be in the system as remote and they would never return to the office anyway. Point being, they never actually put "work from home" in anyone's contract, so technically nothing is changing. They are simply enforcing the always existing rules. I don't work there anymore because I wouldn't go back to the office.
- chii 2y ago
  > they would never return to the office anyway. exactly, so i would counter with saying that if they're never returning to office, then it can't possibly harm to add it as a clause in to the employment contract.
  - aprilthird2021 2y ago
    No company will put this in an employment contract unless they are desperate to hire you, and if they are that desperate to hire you, you're in a whole other league than the people this news applies to.
    - locopati 2y ago
      This is not true. Remote companies and many hybrid companies will obviously make that part of your contract. When the fully remote company I worked for was acquired by a hybrid company, being guaranteed remote was a part of all of our contracts.
      - aprilthird2021 2y ago
        I worked for a fully remote company, and even though they did not have any physical offices to even have us come into, they refused to change in the contract where they reserved the right to have you work in a traditional office if they desired. They still are 100% remote to this day
Gigachad 2y ago
Even in countries with strong labor laws this would still be perfectly allowed if the original contract didn’t say remote.
mariusor 2y ago
This happened to my company a couple of months ago, and this was in Europe. As anecdata the managers implementing this forced RTO with "just quit if you don't like it" as an option were all Amazon alumni.
kcplate 2y ago
I post this every time this topic comes up. But WFH and remote work ability are an exception to the rule in almost every industry/job type other than tech (and sales). Effectively everybody else goes someplace other than home to do their job. I love it, I prefer it, but I recognize that I am lucky to have a career that can offer it. If my company demanded RTO, I would have to weigh the option and perhaps choose to separate from the organization if I couldn’t make the pros/cons work for me. In the US employment is effectively always “at will” for the employee. The employer has some regulation that protects the employee, but if they are essentially willing to pay you, and are providing a safe environment to you, what is so wrong with that? They aren’t torturing you. Tech workers who complain and demand some sort of regulation/intervention against RTO need to realize that those complaints fall on deaf ears to literally everybody other than that tech worker audience. If you want to effect change, quit and deprive the company of your labor.
- stvltvs 2y ago
  Or, you know, unionize.
  - kcplate 2y ago
    Folks sometimes think that unions operate by threat of work stoppage and they dictate all terms to the company’s chagrin. However, people who have been at those tables realize that unions operate by compromise. If you unionize with the hope that this will get you 100% WFH, don’t be surprised if you end up with hybrid and your union is telling you it’s a win. And the next time your contract is renewed your union might be trading WFH days for a greater employer paid portion of your medical insurance when it skyrockets. I am not saying don’t unionize to get WFH, but realize all you are doing is giving them one more item as currency for the next time contract negotiations come around.
- EnergyAmy 2y ago
  That's the wrong way to look at it IMO. It's a way that spreads divisiveness and has an unstated pro-business bias. I think of it as tech workers tend to get treated as people in some ways instead of cattle, and we should work to ensure that everyone gets those benefits. In other words, it's not a privilege that should be shamed or guilted, it's that tech workers are able to demand basic respect on some things.

The fact that US labour laws are this weak is a travesty. You can just circumvent severance by making working conditions unpleasant and you don’t even need to hide it.

wordofx 2y ago

No one is making the working conditions unpleasant. The company which pays you to do work wants its employees to be in the office. If you don’t like it. Don’t work there. Looks like all the employees about to lose their work from home jobs are upset and downvoting.

Foobar8568 2y ago
If your work contract and agreement has remote office, guess what? That's a breach of contract.
- stickydicky 2y ago
  [dead]
- b800h 2y ago
  I suspect Amazon know that and their contracts are worded accordingly.
  - Rebelgecko 2y ago
    Does Amazon even do contracts?
- wordofx 2y ago
  That’s a contract. The vast majority of people currently working from home do not have a contract explicitly stating it’s a work from home position permanently. Those people who went from office to home during covid will have to go back to the office or they will be fired and receive nothing because they did not fill their role.
  - consteval 2y ago
    This is an extremely pro-business perspective. Just because they can do it doesn't mean they're correct, and we should just bend over and spread our cheeks for them. Certainly, we shouldn't beg for them to fuck us, but apparently some of us are really craving it.
    - wordofx 2y ago
      No. This is reality. Business’s provide a service or product. They pay people to perform tasks to deliver the service or product. Just because you want to work from home doesn’t mean you get to. Blue collar jobs don’t get the luxury of working from home. But apparently people like you feel like you’re above everyone else because you have a white collar job so you’re entitled to work from home. Get a grip. You don’t get to dictate every aspect of your job. Start your own business if you want to do things your way.
      - consteval 2y ago
        > Get a grip Au Contraire, you should get a grip because you're being very pathetic. It's one thing to be contempt with actions that harm you. That's just sad. But actively begging for it is nothing short of pathetic. Call me entitled, I don't care. The reality is people like me end up happy and people like you ensure your own misery. It's so unbelievable that people don't even need to make you miserable - in the event you ever find yourself happy, you will do anything possible to make yourself miserable. We DO have some control over our jobs, and we CAN demand better. The only reason you have the life you have is because a lot of people before you demanded better. Just for you to be a weak coward who lays on his knees begging for his throat to get used. If that's what you want to be, fine. Objectively, you do yourself no favors. That's not my opinion, that's what it is. Nobody, and I do literally mean nobody, cares if you work hard or purposefully work at a business you do not like. Blue collar people don't give even half a fuck that you want to have as much, or as little, luxury as them. WFH people will not call you brave because you commute to the office. Instead, what happens is they continue their life MUCH happier than you, and you remain miserable by your own devices, and not a soul on Earth looks your way - not even for pity.

iknowstuff 2y ago

Is severance guaranteed by law? I don’t think it is in California at least

pfannkuchen 2y ago

Aren’t they just reverting to the same working conditions they had from the time they were founded until sometime in 2020? Circumventing severance here seems like quite an overstatement.

faizshah 2y ago
Amazon has one of the lowest average tenures in the industry. The number of engineers and teams that existed pre-2020 under those working conditions is tiny (except maybe the leadership teams). Once you have worked a remote/hybrid software job with a remote team you can’t put that genie back in the bottle (or something like that, that DHH said).
- deleted 2y ago
  [deleted]
- giamma 2y ago
  I have no direct experience, but apparently this is an historical problem. Way before the pandemic a friend of mine relocated to USA (from Italy) and started working for AWS as a product manager. She did not last much and eventually jumped to another big company. Sure the job was challenging in AWS, but what she was complaining the most about was the speed at which people were leaving and being replaced. She told me that she often had to schedule meetings with people from other teams/departments, sometimes 2-3 weeks in advance to find a free calendar slot, and when it was finally the date for the meeting, it often occurred that one of the invitees did not show up, without any prior notice, only for her to discover that the person resigned. So very often she had to reschedule the meeting with different people and wait another couple of weeks for them to be available. This made it very frustrating and difficult for her to get things going, as she was a product manager for a product that required a lot of cross-team collaboration.
mathieuh 2y ago
Well yes, if you disregard the fact that the last four years of realising that WFH is not only possible but preferable for workers happened. It's backsliding from a situation that was advantageous for many workers. For many people it's become non-negotiable that a job offer remote working. If where I worked mandated return-to-office I would immediately begin looking for somewhere else to work.

jedberg 2y ago

When I started at Amazon during the pandemic, I asked for something in writing saying my job was "work from home". They told me not to worry about it, because I'd be in the system as remote and they would never return to the office anyway. Point being, they never actually put "work from home" in anyone's contract, so technically nothing is changing. They are simply enforcing the always existing rules. I don't work there anymore because I wouldn't go back to the office.

chii 2y ago
> they would never return to the office anyway. exactly, so i would counter with saying that if they're never returning to office, then it can't possibly harm to add it as a clause in to the employment contract.
- aprilthird2021 2y ago
  No company will put this in an employment contract unless they are desperate to hire you, and if they are that desperate to hire you, you're in a whole other league than the people this news applies to.
  - locopati 2y ago
    This is not true. Remote companies and many hybrid companies will obviously make that part of your contract. When the fully remote company I worked for was acquired by a hybrid company, being guaranteed remote was a part of all of our contracts.
    - aprilthird2021 2y ago
      I worked for a fully remote company, and even though they did not have any physical offices to even have us come into, they refused to change in the contract where they reserved the right to have you work in a traditional office if they desired. They still are 100% remote to this day

Gigachad 2y ago

Even in countries with strong labor laws this would still be perfectly allowed if the original contract didn’t say remote.

mariusor 2y ago

This happened to my company a couple of months ago, and this was in Europe. As anecdata the managers implementing this forced RTO with "just quit if you don't like it" as an option were all Amazon alumni.

kcplate 2y ago

I post this every time this topic comes up. But WFH and remote work ability are an exception to the rule in almost every industry/job type other than tech (and sales). Effectively everybody else goes someplace other than home to do their job. I love it, I prefer it, but I recognize that I am lucky to have a career that can offer it. If my company demanded RTO, I would have to weigh the option and perhaps choose to separate from the organization if I couldn’t make the pros/cons work for me. In the US employment is effectively always “at will” for the employee. The employer has some regulation that protects the employee, but if they are essentially willing to pay you, and are providing a safe environment to you, what is so wrong with that? They aren’t torturing you. Tech workers who complain and demand some sort of regulation/intervention against RTO need to realize that those complaints fall on deaf ears to literally everybody other than that tech worker audience. If you want to effect change, quit and deprive the company of your labor.

stvltvs 2y ago
Or, you know, unionize.
- kcplate 2y ago
  Folks sometimes think that unions operate by threat of work stoppage and they dictate all terms to the company’s chagrin. However, people who have been at those tables realize that unions operate by compromise. If you unionize with the hope that this will get you 100% WFH, don’t be surprised if you end up with hybrid and your union is telling you it’s a win. And the next time your contract is renewed your union might be trading WFH days for a greater employer paid portion of your medical insurance when it skyrockets. I am not saying don’t unionize to get WFH, but realize all you are doing is giving them one more item as currency for the next time contract negotiations come around.
EnergyAmy 2y ago
That's the wrong way to look at it IMO. It's a way that spreads divisiveness and has an unstated pro-business bias. I think of it as tech workers tend to get treated as people in some ways instead of cattle, and we should work to ensure that everyone gets those benefits. In other words, it's not a privilege that should be shamed or guilted, it's that tech workers are able to demand basic respect on some things.