Many of Amazon’s “white-collar” employees are reportedly not happy about the company’s new return-to-office plan.
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Over 14,000 Amazon employees reportedly joined a channel on the messaging platform Slack to share their displeasure about the new plan, according to a CNBC report.
And some Amazon workers from the channel also created a petition claiming that a return to the office “runs contrary” to many of Amazon’s core values, including diversity, sustainability and inclusion, the report states.
“We, the undersigned, call for Amazon to protect its role and status as a global retail and tech leader by immediately cancelling the RTO policy and issuing a new policy that allows employees to work remotely or more flexibly, if they choose to do so, as their team and job role permits,” according to a draft of the petition.
The petition also referenced some of Jassy’s previous comments about remote work, and how there can be benefits to working from home.
“Many employees trusted these statements and planned for a life where their employer wouldn’t force them to return to the office,” a draft of the petition states. “The RTO mandate shattered their trust in Amazon’s leaders.”
An Amazon spokesperson did not immediately respond to MarketWatch’s request for comment on this story.
In Jassy’s blog post about workers returning to the office, he pushed for workers to come in at least three days a week starting on May 1, in an effort to “strengthen our culture” and he said “people tend to be more engaged” and collaborative when in-person.
He said these are just some of the reasons to return to the office more, and added, “they’re important ones with respect to our overriding priority to deliver for customers and the business,” Jassy said. “And ultimately, they’ve led us to conclude that we should go back to being in the office together the majority of the time (at least three days per week).”
Many major tech companies, including Snap Inc. SNAP,
