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Amazon Makes It Harder for Disabled Employees to Work from Home

(www.bloomberg.com)
283 points belter | 1 comments | 13 Nov 24 21:16 UTC | HN request time: 0.226s | source
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no_wizard ◴[13 Nov 24 21:45 UTC] No.42130354[source]▶
For a company that is supposedly data driven like Amazon likes to tout, they have zero data that RTO would provide the benefits they claim[0]. They even admitted as much[1].

I wouldn't be shocked if one day some leaked memos or emails come to light that prove it was all about control and/or backdoor layoffs, despite their PR spin that it isn't (what competent company leader would openly admit this?)

[0]: https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2024/10/over-500-amazon-...

[1]: https://fortune.com/2023/09/05/amazon-andy-jassy-return-to-o...

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tpurves ◴[13 Nov 24 22:23 UTC] No.42130821[source]▶
They'll have plenty of data to support the primary motivation: that enforcing arbitrary RTO policies will absolutely aid in generating staff turnover and voluntary attrition without having to payout severance costs. The policy gives them less direct control over who they lose, but I'm sure the data also points to any critical replacement employees being willing to work for less on average. That's the data they are looking at.
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heavyset_go ◴[13 Nov 24 22:43 UTC] No.42131024[source]▶
Agree with this, but do want to let employees know that if this happens to them, that changes in working conditions can be considered constructive dismissal even if you quit.
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hansvm ◴[13 Nov 24 23:01 UTC] No.42131172[source]▶
Yeah, that only buys you unemployment though, not severance (which is typically much greater but comes with an NDA of some kind).
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sparky_ ◴[14 Nov 24 01:03 UTC] No.42132040[source]▶
Man, nothing makes you appreciate EU labour protections like reading the HN comments.
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1. hansvm ◴[14 Nov 24 05:37 UTC] No.42133417[source]▶
I'm mostly with you in general. Especially for the amount we pay in taxes, we really ought to have better protections for vulnerable people.

For me in particular, if I were fired a year into every job and had to be unemployed for ten, counting all the health insurance bullshit and whatnot you have in this country when you're unemployed, I'd still be better off financially than in any EU tech job I've found. HN isn't exactly a representative sample of the sort of people who benefit from EU labour protections.