Sounds like the solution is to say, "Yes," then never show up onsite. Make them fire you, so you're entitled to unemployment benefits and any severance.
this post was submitted on 24 Jul 2023
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You don't even have to say yes. Just refuse to relocate it, and when they say you have to resign, just don't.
But if 50% resign because they think they have to, that's 50% less unemployment Amazon has to pay
No. The solution is to call their bullshitnout.
A company can’t hire you to work from one location (regardless if it’s WFH or not,) and then unilaterally decide to have you relocate.
“You can apply internally” or anything else that is a new contract doesn’t matter. They’re changing the terms of employment, and they can’t do that unilaterally.
The choices are to agree with their new terms, accept the “out” of taking another position in your area, or reject them. They can use what ever semantics they want, but it’s still a layoff.
A company can’t hire you to work from one location (regardless if it’s WFH or not,) and then unilaterally decide to have you relocate.
In the ~~use~~ US, with at-will employment, they absolutely can. Terminating someone for not relocating is absolutely legal. And, barring contract or law to the contrary, severance is not required.
This state of things are what happens when you remove unions from the workforce, and why companies like Amazon absolutely flip their shit when union talk starts.
Well, yes. But then they trigger unemployment. The can’t here is that they’re trying to avoid that.
In the us, you have to pay unemployment if they’re not terminated for cause. And refusing to locate is not an “acceptable” cause, so it comes to be an at-will termination (ie “we’re firing you because we can.”)
Also, the jobs they’re talking about usually come with severance packages. It’s not the warehouse gig workers
This is true.
Qualifying for Unemployment Insurance benefits is a decision made by the State, not the employer, and the standard for qualification is much lower than the one used to determine if terminating an employee is legal or not. That is, there are many things that will get you UI benefits that are still perfectly legal reasons to fire someone, as you said.
As an aside, UI is an insurance product sold (forcibly, by the State) to the employer. The employer pays a premium which rises or falls based on the number and cost of claims that employer generates. Naturally, employers are incentivized to reduce the number of claims to keep costs low, but it's not, as is commonly thought, the employer paying benefits directly.
As another side, a strategy companies are using lately to keep their UI costs low is providing a severance package that pays all or part of the employee's salary but paying it out over time. Depending on the state and the rules for that state's UI program, that often counts against any UI benefit the former employee would receive, reducing the weekly benefit (sometimes to $0). It's a thing I've only seen in the past 5 or so years. I would expect States to start to recognize this end-run around the system and adjust the rules accordingly in the near future.
As another side, a strategy companies are using lately to keep their UI costs low is providing a severance package that pays all or part of the employee’s salary but paying it out over time. Depending on the state and the rules for that state’s UI program, that often counts against any UI benefit the former employee would receive, reducing the weekly benefit (sometimes to $0). It’s a thing I’ve only seen in the past 5 or so years. I would expect States to start to recognize this end-run around the system and adjust the rules accordingly in the near future.
this is an old strategy. It's called "severance." Many company will offer a severance package before going to lay offs that enhance retirement packages (especially for people close enough to it anyhow) or otherwise entice people to take it, instead.
As an aside, UI is an insurance product sold (forcibly, by the State) to the employer. The employer pays a premium which rises or falls based on the number and cost of claims that employer generates. Naturally, employers are incentivized to reduce the number of claims to keep costs low, but it’s not, as is commonly thought, the employer paying benefits directly.
It would really, really, suck if you had to rely on a former employer to pay unemployment. Just saying.
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Voluntary resignation = termination. You should still qualify for unemployment.
Forced voluntary resignation no less. Definitely sounds like termination to me.
The specific term, for anyone wondering (or who may be facing this) is "constructive dismissal". If your employer significantly changes the terms of employment (hours, location, job duties, etc) to make you quit, it is legally viewed similar to firing.
I understand the value of working in an office, but I wish our society would choose to pursue improving the quality of our lives instead of increasing productive capacity. It's never enough. These companies always want more.
We can do our jobs just fine, even great, at home. But they want to squeeze everything out of their workers.
It's not about the benefits of going to an office. It's all about corporate realestate. Companies and rich people have a lot of money invested in office buildings and they are all losing value.
There are also huge swathes of middle managers who cannot justify the existence of their job if all the peasants are free to work from wherever. Who’s gonna judge you for being 3 minutes late and not in dress code as you sit and type?
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I think for a lot of engineers, their productivity would be much higher at home. In the office you have way more distractions and time wasters, like coworkers, physical meetings, etc. Even if employees at home are scrolling social media, they're going to procrastinate in office too, just in a different way, whether that's just sitting and doing nothing or going out for lunch on a really long break.
Yeah this is the part I don't get. We are always arguing about whether productivity is highest with wfh or wfo. But we never discuss what maximizes people's happiness. Which seems more important to me, why are we doing any of this anyway? Capitalism I guess.
I work at an NGO and you could argue that they are 'one of the good ones'. They work us into the ground from the goodness in their hearts. The motivation at C-suite is that they want to get as much work done as possible because it seems important. If your job helps to save lives then you want to be really efficient. Profit companies have different goals but the motivation to improve efficiency remains.
Technology enables it. As productive as my company is today I know that we are well behind where we could be. Recent developments in AI have set a brand new horizon to reach towards. These forces aren't going away anytime soon. It makes you want to move faster.
We need to incentivize companies to put more money into people. I think this is something that government has the power to do. There is definitely a way to make sure a company hires two people, pays them salary of two people, and they do the job of one person by working 25 hours a week.
I understand the value of working in an office
I don't, but I'm also a sysadmin. Offices are my hell.
What I learned from some of my colleagues when we moved to WFH, is that some people want to get away from their kids and working from an office is a blessing for them.
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Amazon started enforcing its so-called “return-to-hub” policy in recent weeks, according to an internal email and Slack messages obtained by Insider. Hubs are the central locations assigned to each individual team — employees will have to work out of those hubs instead of any office nearest to their current city.
Amazon assigned offices for most individual employees, but not the whole team. Some employees told Insider that made office work pointless because many still had to use video calls to connect with their teammates spread across the country.
Why does Amazon even bother to do this? Why force their employees back to office if they'll going to work remotely with their distributed team anyway? Why not save money on office space by letting those employees to work from their home?
Why not save money on office space by letting those employees to work from their home?
Because they can't control them at home.
I've never felt more under control by the company I worked for than when my team was all on a Slack channel even though we were all WFH.
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They bought a ton of real estate over the years.
Then places like Seattle were literally falling a part without the added cash cow of commuters stuck in bumper to bumper traffic for 16 hours of a workday.
And that commercial real estate is the backing for a LOT of corporate debt. I imagine they're afraid of the collateral against which that debt was borrowed collapsing in value.
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My guess is taxes.
Control. Why do republican men tell women how to live their lives when it doesn't change their own?
Some of the same insecure power hungry losers are high up managers in these companies
My employer is trying to do this too and using the same logic. I’ll just have to report to an office to video chat my team. Luckily my boss and I are in agreement and until they somehow force both of us, I won’t be doing it. I will, however, be updating my resume.
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I had this exact thing happen to me, they wanted me to move from a tax free state to LA. I said no and they came back we promised your position to another employee. I said ok I need at least a 50% raise to counter the cost of living and taxes. They balked and thought they could push me into it. I stood my ground to stay in my current position and they had to fire me, which looks bad on them as I had no infractions.
I collected, didn't have to pay back my relocation (over 20k) and had a job that I pushed off until near end of unemployment. Thanks for the free long vacation! I went to China and HK (this is before the chaos) for a few months
"Forced voluntary resignation"... What a fucking gross euphemism for being fired. It's disgusting but I guess at this point I really shouldn't be surprised by how Amazon treats their employees.
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Call me crazy, but Voluntary Resignation doesn't sound very "voluntary" if it's forced.
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Can anyone post the full text? The captchas are very not mobile friendly for me
Amazon employees who refuse to relocate near their teams' "hub" offices will either have to find a new job internally or leave the company through a "voluntary resignation."
Amazon started enforcing its so-called "return-to-hub" policy in recent weeks, according to an internal email and Slack messages obtained by Insider. Hubs are the central locations assigned to each individual team — employees will have to work out of those hubs instead of any office nearest to their current city.
One manager declared hubs in Seattle, New York, Houston, and Austin, Texas, for their team, according to one Slack message. It said those who refuse to relocate to one of those hubs will either have to transfer to a new team or they will be considered a "voluntary resignation."
The move is part of Amazon's effort to encourage more in-person work. Under the initial return-to-office policy, Amazon assigned offices for most individual employees, but not the whole team. Some employees told Insider that made office work pointless because many still had to use video calls to connect with their teammates spread across the country. Andy Jassy, the CEO of Amazon, said in his RTO announcement earlier this year that "collaborating and inventing is easier and more effective when we're in person."
In an email to Insider, Amazon's spokesperson, Brad Glasser, said there's "more energy, collaboration, and connections happening since we've been working together at least three days per week."
"We continue to look at the best ways to bring more teams together in the same locations, and we'll communicate directly with employees as we make decisions that affect them," Glasser said.
The new policy comes as a shock to some employees, especially those who were hired for virtual jobs or who moved to remote locations during the pandemic. Prior to the RTO announcement in February, Amazon said in a statement that it didn't plan on forcing people back to the office, while it would continue "experimenting, learning, and adjusting for a while."
"I have seen many posts that people are asked to relocate to one of the hubs in the past week, regardless of virtual status or currently assigned cities/countries. People that had been approved to move to a different country with virtual location were asked to move back to one of the hubs in the US, not to mention people in other cities in the US," one Slack message read.
Employees who refuse to join a hub are given 60 days to find a new team that allows them to stay in their current city, according to Slack messages and an internal email sent Tuesday. If unsuccessful after 60 days, it's considered a voluntary resignation. Most employees were told to make their decision by August.
Amazon's spokesperson said relocation benefits will be available, and the company will make exceptions on a case-by-case basis. Some roles, including sales and customer support, may also continue to be remote.
Still, the change only adds to the frustration Amazon employees face. Earlier this year, over 30,000 Amazon employees joined an internal Slack channel shortly after the RTO announcement and signed a petition to demand a reversal of the mandate. Amazon's HR chief, Beth Galetti, flatly rejected the petition in March, as Insider previously reported.
"I recognize this is completely unethical, not human-centric, and doesn't 'strive to be Earth's best employer,'" another person wrote in Slack. "It's so end-game dystopian. None of us knows how to process this news."
I'm so glad I work for a remote company that states in my employment contract my job is a remote job (or at least, it doesn't specify in-office requirements), so if they ever try to force me to relocate, it would be considered a constructive dismissal and then I get to collect unemployment benefits until I find a new job. That probably won't happen though cause we have people working all across the country. Though, this isn't in USA so maybe things are different there.
Of course, always get your contracts reviewed by an employment lawyer.
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I feel like I need to point out the obvious an awful lot lately, but it's not voluntary if it's forced. They're trying to get out of paying severance and unemployment. Do not comply!
Billionaire apocalypse. Popcorn FTW
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