Over 500 Amazon Workers Decry 'Non-Data-Driven' Logic For 5-Day RTO Policy (arstechnica.com)
- Reference: 0175369687
- News link: https://slashdot.org/story/24/10/31/1943250/over-500-amazon-workers-decry-non-data-driven-logic-for-5-day-rto-policy
- Source link: https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2024/10/over-500-amazon-workers-decry-non-data-driven-logic-for-5-day-rto-policy/
> More than 500 Amazon workers reportedly signed a letter to Amazon Web Services' (AWS) CEO this week, sharing their outrage over Amazon's upcoming return-to-office (RTO) policy that will force workers into offices five days per week. In September, Amazon announced that starting in 2025, workers will [1]no longer be allowed to work remotely twice a week. At the time, Amazon CEO Andy Jassy said the move would make it easier for workers "to learn, model, practice, and strengthen our culture." Reuters [2]reported today that it viewed a letter from a swath of workers sent to AWS chief Matt Garman on Wednesday regarding claims he reportedly made during an all-hands meeting this month. Garman reportedly told attendees that 9 out of 10 employees he spoke with support the five-day in-office work policy. The letter called the statements "inconsistent with the experiences of many employees" and "misrepresenting the realities of working at Amazon," Reuters reported. "We were appalled to hear the non-data-driven explanation you gave for Amazon imposing a five-day in-office mandate,'" the letter reportedly stated. [...]
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> In the letter, hundreds of Amazon workers reportedly lamented what they believe was a [3]lack of third-party data shared in making the RTO policy . It said that Garman's statements "break the trust of your employees who have not only personal experience that shows the benefits of remote work but have seen the extensive data which supports that experience." The letter included stories from 12 anonymous employees about medical, familial, and other challenges that the new RTO policy could create. The letter also reportedly pointed out the obstacles that a five-day in-office work policy has on groups of protected workers, like those providing childcare. The new policy will not align with Amazon's "'Strive to be Earth's Best Employer' leadership principle,'" the letter said. In a statement, an Amazon spokesperson told Reuters that Amazon's benefits include commuter benefits, elder care, and subsidized parking fees.
[1] https://slashdot.org/story/24/09/16/1845223/amazon-ceo-tells-employees-to-return-to-office-five-days-a-week
[2] https://www.reuters.com/business/retail-consumer/amazon-workers-appalled-by-aws-ceos-return-office-remarks-urge-policy-reversal-2024-10-30/
[3] https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2024/10/over-500-amazon-workers-decry-non-data-driven-logic-for-5-day-rto-policy/
"Ah sed, Gatah, quit eatin' mah Granny!" (Score:5, Insightful)
Yeah, he's lying. His stated motives are not his true motives. But he doesn't want to be called on it. And they're calling him on it. He's not gonna like that. He's gonna reiterate his false motives, and deny that his true motives are his true motives. And he can't back down, because that would set a precedent. So he won't. Not unless and until this worker revolt gets WAY bigger and more widespread than it is now. But it almost definitely won't.
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He asked 300 employees, until he got 9 yes answers. Then picked one of the other 291 as the 10th sample.
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This is an interesting argument I haven't seen before. Let's break this down:
> Many places have tax breaks for having a building in the city
Ok.
> and they agreed to have people paying taxes. No people no taxes.
What? What people are these paying what taxes to whom?
> They own a building that's not being used that's an expense that can be recouped.
This is a different argument. But the answer is whether or not they have employees in the building, it is still an expense they take off their revenue as
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The only thing they ever do comes down to share price and dividends for shareholders. Based on what i've seen after the microsoft earnings report, Amazon shareholders are afraid of the hardware investments for the current AI fad driving up costs with limited revenue to show for it beyond a promise for a long term profit. Reducing costs while showing some revenue gains will help keep shareholder confidence for short term profits.
Layoffs without unemployment insurance hits or severance pay hit the bottom line
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The building cost is just a perception thing. It's not as if they're paying for home offices plus the building, they're paying for just the building regardless. If it gets used or not doesn't actually affect the bottom line. If anything with less people there's less demand for HVAC and slightly less staff required as you can clean the bathrooms and empty trashcans on a less frequent basis. You've also got cafetarias, less wear and tear on furniture, etc.
500 out of how many? (Score:1)
I'll bet Bezos and friends are laughing their addresses off...
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Some quick searching says Amazon has about 1.5 million workers of whom 700k are in the warehouses, presumably already 5 days a week, leaving about 800k people impacted by the RTO policy.
So 500 divided by 800k is 0.000065th of their impacted employees signed this letter.
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> Some quick searching says Amazon has about 1.5 million workers of whom 700k are in the warehouses, presumably already 5 days a week, leaving about 800k people impacted by the RTO policy.
> So 500 divided by 800k is 0.000065th of their impacted employees signed this letter.
The 800k also includes delivery drivers and other non-warehouse workers that aren't impacted. Amazon definitely does NOT have 800k corporate employees. I think the current number is about half that.
Also remember the 30:1 rule. For every one person who complains, there are 30 who don't have enough job security to feel comfortable raising their voices. So the 500 signatures likely represent about 15,000 people, or 5% of their workforce, which is surprisingly in line with Amazon's 9 out of 10 estimate.
Stil
Re:500 out of how many? (Score:4, Interesting)
> Or it could be that the 30:1 rule is an underestimate, in which case who knows.
I'd say it's low these days. Where I work, there was a recent policy change that every single person I've spoken to that is affected by it, despises it. I had a routine meeting with my manager recently and pointed out in no uncertain terms that I loathe it. He told me that I'm the first person to tell him that and most people are happy with it. Most managers, I'd accuse of gaslighting there, but I think he's sincere (he and I have been friends for a while, so he's always be blunt with me) and genuinely believes that I am alone in it. A straw pole of two different work groups (each about 40) showed just about everyone in them to have poor opinions of the new policy, but I'm the only one who spoke up.
Protected workers (Score:5, Insightful)
"The letter also reportedly pointed out the obstacles that a five-day in-office work policy has on groups of protected workers, like those providing childcare"
I'm curious in what sense people providing childcare are protected workers. Kinda the whole point of coming to work is then you're at work, working, instead of doing other things like taking care of your kids.
I can see why many employees like the flexibility, and how Amazon may pay a price in becoming less competitive in the labor market by requiring attendance at work, which will force them to pay higher wages or have a worse candidate pool. So if it isn't actually better, they are shooting themselves in the foot. But the idea that they have to have a study to back up any decision they make isn't any kind of legal requirement as far as I know.
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Kinda the whole point of coming to work is then you're at work, working, instead of doing other things like taking care of your kids.
Where I work, our policy explicitly states working from home is not a right or guaranteed employee benefit and continuation is at the sole discretion of the employer, as well as they are to make advance arrangements for any dependent care in the same manner as if they were working in the office. For reference, we have over 60,000 people in our organization.
These f
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If your company can afford on site daycare, it's a social responsibility to provide it, just like hiring inexperienced people and training them up - these actions keep society healthy and functional and give the company a population to do business with in the future and from which to draw future employees.
Of course... Responsibilities are for suckers, right? Just hire early career people and dump them when they can demand more, and do nothing but cheap PR photo ops for the community. Let someone else keep
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No it's not the company's "social responsibility" it's the parent's responsibility to make sure their children are taken care of.
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Most companies that offer on site childcare, do so at a profit, not a loss. Parents will (and do) pay a premium for on site childcare. PG&E in downtown san francisco (before they moved to oakland, very recently) had on site childcare and it was ~$3200/mo with a waiting list hundreds long, whereas childcare nearby (10 minutes walking distance) in SOMA was $2200/mo. Being able to ride the elevator down and stop on the 3rd floor to see your kid at lunch is worth a LOT.
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"Childcare" would not be a protected worker status, but is a compelling reason for some to want to WFH. If the kids are a bit older they can entertain themselves and all that is needed is an adult in the home, so it isn't necessarily avoidance of working. In many situations it is only a few hours between when the child gets home from school or camp or whatever and when the day ends, so it would only overlap a few hours but those few hours can still be a problem for families. Childcare is extremely expensive
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I'm curious, with all those problems, how humanity ever survived during the hundreds of years where leaving the home to go to work was commonplace.
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I don't know if you are being serious but it's a good question. What folks did was take their kids with them a lot more (in agriculture this was very common), put them to work a lot earlier (child labor), and simply let them stay home at loose ends. Older siblings often helped and extended family too since many of them lived in the same dwelling. Neighbors also were closer and helped more often, in many cases forming small cooperatives to take care of the kids in the hood. The wealth gap meant that there we
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The TL;DR; version: "They made do."
Amazon internal policies (Score:1)
For the higher level employees most corporations have internal policies allowing flexible work so that you can raise children. It's a perk you probably aren't seeing because you're not high enough up on the totem pole to get it.
That's for America. For Europe where they have a much more civilized work environment there are actual rules and laws around that topic.
LOGICBOMB muthafukka BAM! (Score:3, Insightful)
I think it's cute that they think they have ownership or say in the matter. Either go the legal route with union or labor laws or GTFO.
Why is it only 5? (Score:4, Insightful)
Aren't there 7 days in a week?
> strengthen our culture.
I really despise the whole company "culture" nonsense. Maybe I'm old-fashioned, but we should go to work to make the company money. Build things, design thing, sell things, fix things, maintain things, etc. There is a core to every business that turns investment into profit, and that ought to be everyone's common goal.
Not only should employees not give two shits about how the executives and HR feel about the company culture. We already know the executives don't care about how employees feel after a 10 hour shift (be it remote or at a designated physical office location)
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[1]https://www.forbes.com/sites/j... [forbes.com]
[1] https://www.forbes.com/sites/jmaureenhenderson/2015/08/31/are-successful-companies-the-new-cults/
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> I really despise the whole company "culture" nonsense.
Generally, I agree with you, and in this case, it's just some BS excuse. However, although I've never experienced a bad culture, I've heard horror stories about bad cultures like Cisco and Amazon, e.g., fiefdoms, back-stabbing, or just overly political.
OTOH, I've experienced great cultures where people always took the time to help you if you needed it even if it's for no other reason than to make the stock price go higher.
But the rah, rah type of cu
You're not old fashioned (Score:1)
You're smelling the bullshit. The company culture crap is just a way for them to pay you less for more work. Fast food restaurants do things like that too where the manager will get buddy buddy with the teenagers because they're preying on them. The book fast food nation has an entire chapter on it where it describes the techniques used to take kids who don't get positive reinforcement at home and give them that reinforcement at a job thereby getting a ton of free labor from them.
Incidentally this is wh
Company "culture" lists are total bullshit (Score:1)
Companies display their true culture by how they treat employees. This is just Amazon showing their true culture.
They're seeing this wrong (Score:2)
These are obviously top notch workers who can get a better job anywhere the next day that will offer FT WFH, the same pay and other benefits they get from Amazon and at better run, more reliable companies that are likely to still be there in the future, whereas Amazon is clearly going to die from the negative effects of their loss due to this policy.
They should see this as an opportunity to spread their wings and grow their careers by grabbing that higher paying, 5 days a week WFH job offered by numerous mo
not the hill to die on (Score:4, Insightful)
Nobody worked at Amazon for the awesome work environment. It was always a pressure cooker. Long hours, unreasonable deadlines, asshole boss, etc.
People chose to work at Amazon for the good pay, and the chance to build their skills, and advance their career. If work-from-home is more important to you work someplace else.
Democracy (Score:2)
In essence, the boss makes the calls. Sure there are rules he has to follow, but if the boss believes RTO is the way, he does not have to prove that to his employees. The only things you can do is ask for more info, protest, strike and/or find another job. That's it. Maybe launching your own company is also an option. Drive your old boss out of business by taking advantages of the higher efficiency of RTO.
Their missing the point (Score:2)
Of course it's not a data driven reason for doing it. You're SUPPOSED to be outraged by it, It's a stealth lay-off. They want you to get upset and quit so they can tell the shareholders how much they reduced their overhead without having to say "layoffs".
AWS Data Centers in the Suburbs (Score:2)
In Northern Virginia, they're building HQ2 in the city where you have to commute 4 hours a day if you want a yard. Then they're forcing data centers into residential neighborhoods out in the suburbs. This seems entirely backwards.
Amazon want these workers to quit (Score:2)
on their own accord. So Amazon won't be stuck with their unemployment insurance. They didn't get fired or layoff, they quit.
I work for an evil corporation and... (Score:2)
...I don't like how they treat me! SHOCKED! SHOCKED, I SAY!
Anyway, I just ordered some GrubHub and didn't tip the driver because he took 15 minutes instead of 12. What a lazy sack of crap.
The job is the job. (Score:2)
If you don't like the requirements, go job hunting... If the market has no spot for you well, it's part of your job just like 5 years ago when you showed up for work each workday.
On the subject of Quitting. (Score:2)
We have a "binary" system here in the USA due to employment-at-will. Either you stay and suck it up, or you find another job and quit. There isn't any fuzzy logic allowed here. You work under the boss' terms (Which can change at any time and with no notice), or you quit. There is no in-between.
Most workers live in a state where they are on a knife's edge due to debt obligations and family responsibilities. (Living paycheck to paycheck. 70% of US workers are trapped in this cycle) This is exactly where the b
What's the data driven reason against (Score:2)
The French revolutionary calendar or decimal time?
"Our culture" (Score:1)
Bahhahahahaha...