The popular dating app Grindr has suffered a significant loss of staff, approximately 45%, due to the implementation of a return to the office policy, coinciding with its employees' efforts to unionize. Some 80 of the company's 178 employees were forced to resign from their jobs after the company required workers to return to the offices in person at least two days a week. This was reported by the Communications Workers of America (CWA) union in a statement. This measure generated criticism and complaints of retaliation.
Grindr's decision to force a return to the office and its subsequent downsizing has raised concerns about the app's security and stability for its users. The company awarded severance payments to employees who could not comply with this policy, which has been interpreted as an attempt to “silence workers about their working conditions,” the CWA alleged.
“These decisions have left Grindr dangerously understaffed and raise questions about the security and stability of the app for users,” Erick Cortez, a member of the organizing group, said in the letter. “It is clear that Grindr wants to silence workers and discourage us from exercising our right to organize, no matter the cost.”
Grindr CEO George Arison defended the move to investors at Goldman Sachs' Communacopia Technology conference. He assured that a greater loss of personnel is expected, although he stressed that this will benefit the company financially in the short term.
“The team will be smaller than we were before and than we want to be,” Arison said. “So that will obviously impact the margin positively in the short term. But I also think it shows that in this business you can have great leverage, because you don't need such a large team to do the things we have to do.”
He also emphasized the fact that personnel costs are significant for the company after fees paid to app distribution platforms such as Apple Inc. and Alphabet Inc.'s Google.
The case of Grindr is not unique in the technological world. Other US tech companies, such as Amazon and Google, have reversed their policies on remote work, requiring their employees to return to the office at least three days a week. This has generated resistance and protests by workers in these companies.
The company founded by Jeff Bezos, for example, ordered its employees to return to the office three days a week. As a result, hundreds of workers went on strike seeking more flexibility in remote work. Amazon CEO Andy Jassy expressed his willingness to have employees leave if they did not agree with this policy.
The Alphabet Inc search engine also urged most of its employees to work in the office three days a week, drawing criticism due to high housing costs near offices. Additionally, Google offered workers at its California campus the option of paying for hotel accommodations instead of making the commute.
