Grindr’s Return-to-Office Ultimatum Has Gutted a Uniquely Queer Space in Tech::Two weeks after staff at queer dating app Grindr unionized, bosses ordered employees back to the office. Nearly half the app’s workers refused and have been laid off.
Seems like the RTO was rushed and mishandled for some reason. I can only guess they wanted to punish the unionizers or just do a major layoff without calling it a layoff.
Article explains it:
Shortly after Arison was hired as CEO in October, Twitter users unearthed tweets he’d written expressing support for conservative politicians, many of whom had expressed anti-LGBTQ+ views. Robin was willing to give him the benefit of the doubt after he told staff he would change, but says the recent alleged union busting has broken that trust.
They hired a rightwingers as CEO, and even if he changed his mind on social policy, he’s still obviously a Republican on fiscal.
This is a way to get rid of highly paid people since the labor pool for tech ballooned after twitter fired everyone.
He’s hoping for a short dip, then replacing everyone for cheaper salaries.
Jesus. The CEO of Grindr is a supporter of homophobes. We truly are in the worst timeline.
He googled “how to fuck the gays” and grindr was the top result.
Yep. Grinder is a trash company now. I think it was even owned by a company in China for a while, which is just weird.
Yeah that seems reasonable. RTO is quite a powerful/interesting tool for these employers
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The second part, I think people don’t pick up on that often enough. These return to office pushes are soft layoffs. They get to do a layoff without paying severance or even unemployment.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Constructive_dismissal
You’d think hiring someone fully remote then changing the terms of the job would qualify but I m only a bird lawyer.
While this is true, they also don’t get to have as much control and who leaves.
Normally when you do layoffs you strategically keep the people on who were best for the company.
Corporate culture these days seems to value people who will eat shit and smile, not expect raises and not quit when they should above most other metrics… so they do keep the people “best” for the company.
It’s amazing how many of these big companies are suddenly coordinated on this return-to-office push. Do they all get together at their bunker/mansions in New Zealand to discuss these evil plans?
Class solidarity is a big thing for the bourgeoisie, unfortunately it is nonexistent for the proletariat.
They’re certainly colluding to screw workers and consumers as much as possible. It benefits them to work together against the working class.
I read this as grindr loses 50% of its engineering staff because of dumb management decisions. Honestly the RTO was probably just a cop out to their dwindling user base.
The RTO sounds like it was pure union busting.
50% is a huge number. If the 50% represent some mid and higher up folks, it could really cripple a company. The worst thing they could do is give in. If the workers stand strong, no company is going to survive with half their staff getting laid off because of this.
My last company has about 45 employees. 5 of the highest skilled employees left after Covid and it absolutely knocked us on our ass.
Make no mistake, even losing a few key people can end a company.
Didn’t have Key Man Insurance, I guess.
5 of the highest skilled employees left after Covid and it absolutely knocked us on our ass.
The Dead Sea Effect eats again.
TIL this is a thing.
Good. Die in flames. Make room for something more progressive
If the 50% represent some mid and higher up folks, it could really cripple a company.
I’ve yet to see a company that couldn’t lose 50% or more of its mid-to-higher level management without serious consequence. Start with people who are somehow related to current or former company members, and it’s a really great start.
Now, a company losing more than 10% of its grunts who make the things the company sells, that’ll kill it.
It’s an excuse to union bust.
It seems like the playbook for any company that wants to downsize now is to mandate RTO. That way, they can justify firing people with cause.
In the past, they had to move their operations to Bumfuck, Nowhere and request that employees move, so that those who don’t move can be fired easily. RTO mandates are a godsend for such companies now. Cause to fire without cost!
People literally die from these directives
But how else will the executives retain the value of their commercial realestate?! They have long term contracts to pay.
How so?
Covid. Flu. Car accidents
The science is definitely pointing to people getting sick and possibly having life long consequences. But has anyone died from post vaccination RTO?
I mean, probably someone. But people die on their commute, and that’s never been a topic of contention. So like, more than that.
At minimum someone has in a traffic fatality.
Ever since we found out that Grindr has been tracking their users’ locations at all times and then selling that data to private companies, Grindr has been dead to me.
I’ve found that grindr is trying to be more like tinder and less like the hookup app that it once was. Personally, I’ve been using Sniffies for hookups…haven’t touched grindr in like 2 years 💅🏻
Constructive dismissal
People need to have this phrase yelled at them frequently in the US.
Grindr is a powertool right?
Right?
I think it’s an app for ordering powertools. I heard you can just swipe right and you can have a powerful drill delivered to where you need it.
https://youtu.be/nsOfcqsMSlE?feature=shared
So funny fry is a treasure
Legend
Fascinating! This is after Grindr’s push to try to make them sound more like a networking app. A bunch of ads masquerading as journalism over the past few weeks.
Grindr might not survive in a few years.
