Correct me if I’m wrong, but wouldn’t this be a great time to try out the power of the union? It sounds like while they haven’t been recognized, they do have members. I wonder if they’re considering any collective action.
Some employees believe the move may be in retaliation for trying to form a union. Per the article, "The news comes two weeks after employees announced their effort to unionize under the Communications Workers of America, Grindr United. Grindr United posted Sunday that the pivot to in-person work by the company is a "bizarre coincidence." Of course, Grindr says it had nothing to do with the attempts to unionize.
I guess my thinking is just that the company has given the union a really good “first issue” for the union to tackle. If you just signed up to unionize, and then you get told you’re going to get fired unless you move, why would you not try out collective action?
Even if they threaten firing people for participating in some sort of collective action, you were already going to get fired.
The union doesn't exist yet, so you can't really "try it out." This action by Grindr does seem like a direct response to the attempt to form the union, though.
As far as I can make out, in the US a group of employees wanting to act together in any union or union-adjacent form cannot do so until after the union has been formally voted on and agreed to.
50/50 there are time-limit rules that make formally unionizing inside two weeks impossible.
[edit: from multiple law firms websites it sounds like you don't need a union to strike, but the process of striking is also not as simple as just not working. That's important, you can be fired/punished for not working, but not for striking, so if you are serious you should talk to an attorney (this is something your union would help you with if you had one)]
> As far as I can make out, in the US a group of employees wanting to act together in any union or union-adjacent form cannot do so until after the union has been formally voted on and agreed to.
There is nothing to stop you and your colleagues from simply declining to log in until the company's attitude improves. They can threaten to fire you, but they were already playing that card, and they can't sail a ship if they kick all the sailors out.
>There is nothing to stop you and your colleagues from simply declining to log in until the company's attitude improves. They can threaten to fire you, but they were already playing that card
the idea behind a Union is that they can't retaliate agaisnt you once you formally announce a legal strike. It's a term written in a contract that the company agrees to. Breaking it is the same as any other contract breech, which should have enough sanctions to make it the worst option.
That's how congress ruled those railroad strikes as "illegal". When they do that you can still "technically" strike, but you're no longer being paid and/or are at risk of being fired. Maybe that still is an avenue to look into, but many cannot take that risk.
You cannot be fired for going on strike, and an employer is required to reinstate you post-strike unless they have a "bonafide replacement" (e.g. they can't have hired a contractor, and afaict if the position reopens [presumably with limits?] they're required to offer it to you).
Simply stopping work doesn't count, it sounds like you have to go through a formal process of notice, including collective demands, and an agreement to return to work following agreement or a good faith negotiated contract. Of course the benefit of unions is that they have experience in ensuring a strike is legal, and providing legal assistance - in some cases unions can provide financial support for strikers (otherwise you trivially get to a "I just hold out until they lose their homes/children starve" state where strikes are irrelevant)
From various legal firms it _sounds_ like you don't need a union to strike, but your strike still needs to be legal (there are illegal strikes).
Of course it goes without saying, but I am not a lawyer, and am just going from the NLRB site and various law firms websites (on both worker and employer sides).
Grindr is a US company, even if it weren't the employees in question are in the US, so subject to US employment law, which is what my comment revolves around.
The NLRB site explicitly states that striking is a legal action employees can take ('“Employees shall have the right. . . to engage in other concerted activities for the purpose of collective bargaining or other mutual aid or protection.” Strikes are included among the concerted activities protected for employees by this section. Section 13 also concerns the right to strike'[1], 'Employees at union and non-union workplaces have the right to help each other'[2])
The NLRB site explicitly states that firing an employee due to them striking is illegal ('You cannot be fired for participating in a protected strike or picketing, depending on the purposes and means of the strike action.'[3])
The NLRB site, and numerous law firms (on both sides) seem to say that you can't just "not work", there is some formal process.
If you want to go on strike you should talk to either an employment attorney, or your union if you're in one.
I am genuinely curious, if you're down voting my comment, I'd love to know why.
I didn't downvote, but I do see an issue that could be the cause: the statement "you can't be fired for going on strike" misses the essential difference of the law as written versus the law as enforced, ignoring the messy reality of power and who wields it. If you're fired for striking or other protected activity, you can pursue legal recourse; hopefully you can still meet needs for food, shelter, medicine, etc. This may as well be on another planet from "cannot".
>the statement "you can't be fired for going on strike" misses the essential difference of the law as written versus the law as enforced
strikes are pretty effective, that's why the devil in the details isn't trying to go around a strike. It's to either rule a strike a illegal, or try and prevent a union from forming to begin with.
I see that statement as pretty much true... once you can establish the union. And I see it as a proper response to "well you don't need a union to strike". Of course no one can make you work if you stop going to work, and you can't be arrested for refusing to work unless you are military (AWOL) or very specific, specialized professions. But that misses the point of a union.
Yes, the National Labor Relations Board. You can file with them, and they'll get involved. I haven't seen a public statement that the employees here have done that yet, but I can't imagine that they will not end up doing so.
"The CWA has also filed a complaint with the National Labor Relations Board as a result of the return to office order, arguing that it is retaliation against union organizing."
I don’t know if that means that now is a bad time to unionize though. There was more leverage before obviously, but considering they’re threatening to fire you anyway, I think it’s a pretty solid opportunity.
Though, I have no idea how unions work in the states. It sounds like they may be somehow barred from any collective action somehow?
It's tough though because during high demand employees have leverage but employee incentives are very misaligned. People are getting big offers and raises so some don't necessarily need or want the Union.
People have been knowingly coming to work sick at my office now sadly. Same as it was pre pandemic. Thankfully I’m not required to go in. Very thankfully.
Has anyone tested whether losing a job this way is legally considered "not at fault" for purposes of unemployment benefits? (Obviously this may vary by state.)
Depends on whether the employment arrangement was set up like this at the outset or with the employer’s consent, or whether these employees moved during COVID thinking RTO would never happen.
Yeah I can’t even pay the mortgage with Florida’s unemployment. They like us poor and stupid. Meanwhile my homeowner’s insurance goes up each year even though my area hasn’t been hit by a hurricane. Fun fact, Jacksonville FL gets fewer direct strikes from hurricanes than New Jersey.
No, I think it is terrible. Is Grindr paying for the relocation? The cost of traveling to scope out apartments? Assuming people purchased property in LCOL places, October is barely any time to get a house ready to sell + actually go through the sale process to closing. Is Grindr paying for that? Is Grindr upping up pay equal to the difference of the cost of living differences?
In fact, French labor law is quite archaic on remote work ("telework"), so it's odd that they you chose them, of all "progressive" countries, as your comparison point.
Additionally, those same engineers would, statistically, be earning ~33-50% (before tax) what they do now, if they were in France.
I always find it odd when people disfavorably compare STEM fields in NA to the EU; as they're the few fields the US/Canada are almost undoubtedly better to work in (there's exceptions, of course).
Employers just set the terms and conditions of how remote working is organised, within the framework of social dialogue (ie with employee representatives). The guidelines remind employers that they must ensure collective links are maintained within the company and prevent the risks linked to the isolation of employees working remotely.
There’s a difference between it’s no longer required to require remote and forced RTO.
Yes, now go read the labor law on "telework" provisions. Combine those two contexts, and you have a full story. One of France not, in any way, being a paragon of "remote work" ideals.
To make it opaque for you: remote work provisions were required because French labor law defaults to employees not only being in the office, but that being the preferred status.
OP could have, instead, used a genuinely remote-friendly nation, like Norway or Sweden, if they knew what they were talking about. But they didn't, which is the point; instead posting an ignorant and biased kneejerk response.
Not sure where you’re getting your information from, but I feel like the opposite is true. If you want to work remotely, they even have a remote working contract specifically designed for that case.
Maybe what looks archaic to you is that under French labor law, employees can’t be treated differently if they have the same type of contract. Meaning one individual can’t work two days from home and another three. Or one person can’t just have their travel expenses to and from the office payed, unless all employees with the same contract have that too.
I believe this is why they had to introduce the new contract for remote work. With this, their strong worker protections stay in tact while still allowing for more modern ways of working.
What is archaic is their bloody governmental control system. There is an inspector for every stupid thing you can imagine and it is an enormous waste if time and money.
I don't understand which portion of my post you're trying to argue against? You, yourself, posted the following yesterday:
> I made 22kUSD last year in Kiev. I think my colleague on same team in USA was making 65kUSD. Not SWE, just comparing numbers. I was also paid more than the average for my position/geography.
Which seems to reinforce my point, if anything? Since the rest has to do with France, specifically.
If you signal you will not move, do you get fired on the spot? Attempting to separate the decision from the action feels like a mechanism to try to avoid constructive dismissal[0]
>In employment law, constructive dismissal, also called constructive discharge or constructive termination, occurs when an employee resigns as a result of the employer creating a hostile work environment. Since the resignation was not truly voluntary, it is, in effect, a termination. For example, when an employer places extraordinary and unreasonable work demands on an employee to obtain their resignation, this can constitute a constructive dismissal.
Agreeing to move and then not following through seems like an fast track to go from constructive dismissal with severance/unempoyment to fired with cause.
the pro/cons also depend a lot like the timelines for dismissal.
I can not overstate how bad and buggy grindr is despite it‘s insane price for very basic features.
Even with a subscription you constantly get nagged with micro transaction shit (e.g. put your profile in front of others for a short while on the distance based gris)
Scruff isn't too buggy but also insanely priced for basic features. Very gameified, "pay more to interact with better men".
It's practically extortion considering a substantial chunk of the gay male population no longer go to bars to find dates anymore because of the apps to begin with. Another big tech bait & switch
On a general note, this is a golden opportunity to snatch up all the talented people who want to WFH. But the WFH debate has shown that very few people want to put their money where their mouths are.
We're still in a market with record low levels of unemployment. So, those people will be fine and will find other jobs valued at what they are worth (which might be less than they imagine though). I think what's going to happen slowly over the next few years is that we are going back to more normal levels of unemployment. Which will lead to the usual competitiveness in the workplace and more opportunities for those who actually do show up in the office. And also a weakened negotiation position when applying for a job if you are looking to work remote. If there are other candidates willing to come to the office, you might miss out if you insist that you shouldn't.
Yes, I agree - This remote-work push-pull will be continuous based on who has the leverage at any given time. I exited the industry many years back, but I would not want to be a remote-only worker in a high income country competing with the global talent pool.
Whether security issues from a disgruntled employee, or from the fact that good employees quit because they can find better terms at a different job - probably time for me to delete those ass pics.
> I imagine two devs could maintain the app. I've certainly managed more complex apps myself.
Do you believe that only developers are employed at the company?
Having 273 employees seems like a reasonable number to handle tasks such as development, marketing, and ensuring the overall success of a legitimate business. Consider roles like executives, lawyers, accountants, human resources personnel, payroll administrators, marketing and sales professionals, customer service, designers, web developers, database administrators, development operations experts, and cloud infrastructure specialists. Additionally, there would be managers overseeing various teams dedicated to different features, working to retain existing customers and attract new ones each quarter.
If you find the idea of 273 individuals handling all these responsibilities unreasonable, I’m genuinely interested in hearing how you would envision the organizational structure for such a company.
it seems like a lot to me too. I use to work at a company about that size with a far more complicated product (professional design software with thousands of dialogs, render pipeline, etc). of course, we did not have so many customers.
I'm always amazed by people who think they know more about the need for human capital than the businesses that utilize said human capital.
Your key (incorrect) assumption is that these apps are for some reason in maintenance mode. These are international apps on various platforms with new features and various business requirements. I can, off the top of my head, think of teams like security, advertising, analytics, marketing, devops, infra, CX, etc. etc.
I'd love you see you try and run just their CX team by yourself and another person, much less the rest of the org.
>I'm always amazed by people who think they know more about the need for human capital than the businesses that utilize said human capital.
to be fair, it's been clear that companies overhired like crazy over the pandemic, simply because they could. They may know more, but their calculus isn't as simple as operating for the lowest cost for the biggest money. So many companies over the pandemic were trying to take advantadge and grow like crazy, so they essentially gambled.
But sure, when the front facing user value is a slightly fancy chat app, it can be easy to underestimate the scope of the app, or its advertising.
In almost every one of these conversations, people always forget the back office: modern user-facing applications are just the tip of the iceberg for large backend systems that cover customer service/support tooling, regional variations of core features, financial and compliance reporting, analytics, advertising platforms, CMS features, internal tools to support all of the people working on these various other things, etc, etc. A lot goes into a business being able to offer a simple-looking app experience.
And sure, most businesses have some bloat too once they get to a certain size. But there's a lot of legitimate need, too.
The frontend is your product, but the backend is your _business_.
What I find more interesting, is with that amount of employees, you barely hear any kind of leaks, not necessarily the technical type too, it feels like it’s a blackbox of employees unlike other apps say twitter etc., you never get to interact with a “tinder ex-employee” or such, kind of weird, especially when they are treated like that, I expect someone to go out and speaks up about some internal policies, or anonymously leaking some emails, how actually the algorithm works that obviously destroys dating scene so you can pay them more, and so on.
800 isn't enough for the scale of leaks you're expect (since you're comparing to twitter). Especially if it's one of those rare companies that tries to retain employees.
It also doesn't help that while 800 is a lot, there's probably less than a few dozen who would be managing those policies. I'm sure those employees are compensated (or threatened) more than enough to stay shut.
