Amazon workers demand CEO ‘immediately cancel’ plan to return to office

Furious Amazon workers are reportedly demanding that their boss, Andy Jassi, rethink a new return-to-office plan due May 1.

Last week, Yassy announced that Amazon corporate employees would be required to be at their desks at least three days a week – with a few exceptions. The Amazon CEO argued that the mandate would improve collaboration and help the company “deliver services to customers and businesses.”

Shortly after Jassi’s announcement, employees launched a “Remote Advocacy” channel on Amazon’s internal Slack messaging system to tout the virtues of remote work and object to the office mandate. More than 14,000 employees have joined the group as of Tuesday, according to Insider.

Members of the Remote Defense Channel also launched a petition calling for Yassy and a group of top managers known as the S-team to completely abandon their plans.

“We, the undersigned, call on Amazon to protect its role and status as a global retail and technology leader by immediately repealing the RTO policy and issuing a new policy that allows employees to work remotely or be more flexible if they choose. as far as their team and job responsibilities allow,” the draft petition reads.

An early version of the petition also includes a promise that employees will file “data against RTO” and cites the benefits of working remotely, including increased productivity and a better work-life balance.

Employees said the three-day-a-week mandate would run counter to Amazon’s stance on issues such as affordable housing, diversity, and climate change.

They also accused Yassy of contradicting his past statements about how Amazon would work with remote work, including last year’s quote in which he said “there is no one size fits all approach to how each team works best.”

“Many employees trusted these statements and planned for a life where their employer would not force them to return to the office,” the petition reads, according to CNBC. “The RTO mandate has eroded their trust in Amazon leaders.”

Jassy’s announcement marked a major policy shift for the Seattle-based e-retail giant, which previously allowed its managers to determine how often their team members should work onsite. Some employees remained completely remote under the old approach.

Some employees used the Slack channel to express their dissatisfaction with Jassi’s move.

“It will be absolute chaos, and everyone will be distracted by work, probably a quarter, maybe longer,” wrote one Amazon employee. “It’s hard to be productive when so much uncertainty comes into our lives.”

Others on the channel grumbled that the policy lacked detail and that it would disproportionately tax employees who moved away from the office during the COVID-19 pandemic.

The Post has reached out to Amazon for comment.

The outrage comes at a difficult time for Amazon, which recently ordered 18,000 layoffs as part of a cost-cutting program in response to falling revenue. Yassy recently warned employees during an internal meeting that the company would take “many months” to recover.

Amazon isn’t the only firm facing employee dissatisfaction with its return-to-the-office plan.

A similar petition campaign was launched at Disney, where CEO Bob Iger recently ordered employees to work in the office at least four days a week.