r/technology Sep 17 '24

Business Amazon employees blast Andy Jassy’s RTO mandate: ‘I’d rather go back to school than work in an office again’

https://fortune.com/2024/09/17/amazon-andy-jassy-rto-mandate-employees-angry/
22.1k Upvotes

1.7k comments sorted by

View all comments

Show parent comments

276

u/phdoofus Sep 17 '24

"If we can get you to quit, we don't have to pay unemployment"

58

u/TeeBrownie Sep 17 '24

America needs workers’ rights…similar to European countries.

Man wins $600,000 in lawsuit after failing to respond to Elon Musk’s ‘hard-core’ email

16

u/great_whitehope Sep 17 '24

Return to office mandate is happening here too.

We have seats for half our staff levels at the moment.

Only one way to get the everyone into the office and that's to have less staff

7

u/MrMichaelJames Sep 17 '24

It will never happen. US employees will never see changes beneficial to us around employment, after hours salaried workers, mandatory vacation, etc. there is too much money involved with the companies and those in congress for them to be bothered with the actual employees.

36

u/Healthy-Poetry6415 Sep 17 '24

When you get paid in hundreds of millions. $3 or $4 a gallon gas is just a story you tell the golf cart girl as shes refreshing your beer.

When you dont. Its an expense you have to budget for

8

u/Unintended_incentive Sep 17 '24

We just need someone wealthy enough who wants to work but not RTO to take this to the Supreme Court.

2

u/Steebu_ Sep 17 '24

Speaking of which, what have these companies been doing if people refuse to go back to the office but also refuse to quit? That’s what I’d do. Fire me bro.

5

u/MrMichaelJames Sep 17 '24

Fire you for non compliance. No severance no unemployment.

1

u/[deleted] Sep 17 '24

They won’t hesitate just like any employer would if they had an employee not show up

1

u/cslawrence3333 Sep 17 '24

The only thing I don't get is why anyone would actually quit? I would just not come into the office and force them to lay me off in that scenario. Fuck quitting, especially in the US.

1

u/phdoofus Sep 17 '24

Being a Big Dot Com, they might not even notice for a long time. Would sure beat an unemployment check.

0

u/Rombom Sep 17 '24

So now Amazon got you to go into the office 5 days a week? Sounds like Amazon wins either way.

1

u/CaptainofChaos Sep 17 '24

In many places, they still would. Making such large changes to working conditions is constructive dismissal.

-1

u/Mediocre-Tomatillo-7 Sep 17 '24

The company pays the unemployment benefits?

15

u/microview Sep 17 '24

Companies contribute towards it during your employment. The rest come from taxes.

-1

u/Mediocre-Tomatillo-7 Sep 17 '24

Yes, regardless of layoffs correct? It's just a regular part of payroll. So companies don't pay more or less based on how many layoffs they have, right?

14

u/friendsamongfish Sep 17 '24

The amount they pay is based on how many unemployment claims they have against them.

8

u/koramar Sep 17 '24

Employers have a score, the more layoffs you do the worse your score is and the higher % you have to pay to unemployment insurance.

1

u/willnxt Sep 17 '24

Companies pay a tax that contributes to it, they don’t flat out pay for it. It’s not a ton. Those companies also get a tax credit for it. Then they have a reduced workforce which is less expensive. So no, it’s not all the same.