Apple workers launch petition over firm’s return-to-office stance | Hacker News Reader

Apple workers launch petition over firm’s return-to-office stance

theguardian.com

17 pointsoneeyedpigeon17 comments

> Apple Together reportedly intends to collect signatures this week before verifying them and sending them to the iPhone makers’ executives.

This might actually be a good way for Apple leadership to vet the policy if it generates more honest responses than an internal confidential-ish survey. Collect sigs, check against performance reviews, decide whether to adjust policy.

I don’t get it, are they being held against their will? Can’t they go work at numerous other remote work companies?

Imagine not getting worker collective organizing.

There are certainly better ways to communicate your point than this.

> There are certainly better ways to communicate your point than this.

Well, do tell.

Passing along a petition sounds like a very low impact way of collectively asking for something. It's not like they are starting off with a strike.

Or are thinking of a "mgmt's way or the highway" type of deal?

I just find any single sentence comment that starts with “Imagine…” as uselessly snarky. That’s all.

This isn't collective organizing though.

collective organizing allows management and labor to come to the same table and hammer out a broad agreement based on both perspectives' priorities.

If remote working was a point on the collective organizing table then management would be able to request mitigating actions to compensate for whatever they felt was lost because of WFH.

This, on the other hand, is a single issue action, which involves no bargaining and places demands from 1 side without a corresponding opportunity to mitigate negative effects.

I'm not familiar with a definition of collective organizing that requires the conditions you describe, however I am fine with working with your definition.

My comment (rather sarcastically) alludes to the fact that Apple employees are coming together and making a demand. It surprises me how many people will immediately shill for the employer's position and act shocked that employees would collectively ask for something. "Can't they just go work somewhere else?"

> If remote working was a point on the collective organizing table then management would be able to request mitigating actions to compensate for whatever they felt was lost because of WFH.

What you are missing is that there does not seem to be a "collective organizing table" that you speak of at Apple. An edict from above comes in saying staff need to return to office. Apple execs did not "request mitigating actions" they demanded it.

> This, on the other hand, is a single issue action, which involves no bargaining and places demands from 1 side without a corresponding opportunity to mitigate negative effects.

Any bargaining starts with needs and wants from both sides. Apple has made their demand to the employees telling them to return to office. Some employees are trying to organise to put forward a counter-demand. Apple execs could respond to said petition with an offer to come to the same table and negotiate, but it does not seem like they are at that stage yet.

Imagine not getting people are free to do what they want. Life isn’t a perpetual college campus. At least not for 99% of us.

College campuses actually host in person classes now. Conversely, Apple Park is literally called a campus, so it's not as if management isn't in on it either.

So I agree with you, they can.

But a lot of them aren’t 24 years old with no obligations who can throw away their stock comp on a whim, so it makes sense for them to complain.

With that said, they’re all going to end up hybrid at best; it just makes no sense for Apple/Google to have it any other way.

Why does the "if you don't like Apple, you can choose a competitor" pat response have to extend everywhere from buying an Android phone to changing your employer?

How does this make sense? There is only one iOS alternative. There are 1.2 million other places these people can go work.

Changing one's employment can be a difficult, life-changing process. To just blithely suggest people can change jobs easily is underestimating the immense amount of work involved in the process, and the immense amount of personal complications involved. People might be dependent on an insurance plan provided by the company. They might not find it practical to change jobs at the moment. Not every role at Apple is as mobile as software engineering. Even among software engineers, you then have to deal with the Leetcode grind. The very act of applying for jobs is stressful and time-intensive, just ask people who are laid off. People might not find it advantageous to leave yet because of the vesting cycle. People might not want to leave because they actually care about the customers and users they would be abandoning. In short, you are asking people to take a drastic step, rather than simply questioning management. Why do workers have to accept that? What makes them wrong and this policy right? And regardless of who is right, if employees disagree with their treatment, they should be able to complain and voice discontent, right?

But to your point, workers do not “have to accept that.”

To me this is very simple. If the company wants them in office, they can leave. If enough talented people leave then the company will suffer.

I as an employee do not feel that I should change my employer’s policy, which they’ve had for 40 years, simply because I feel it should be a certain way. I cannot fathom that level of entitlement. It just doesn’t register in my brain.

> If the company wants them in office, they can leave. If enough talented people leave then the company will suffer.

Before people leave, they could at least try to see if management is flexible. Perhaps they like working there and care about the product and the customers and don’t want to leave right away. Perhaps they feel like a case can be made.

If you are passed over for a promotion or the company withholds your bonus or you feel wronged otherwise, you don’t immediately leave your company, do you? Likewise, you may try to work with management or HR to see if what you want is achievable first, before leaving.

> I as an employee do not feel that I should change my employer’s policy, which they’ve had for 40 years, simply because I feel it should be a certain way.

The ability to conduct remote work was not present for forty years, and was not tested until the pandemic. Now that it has been tried, the change back seems negotiable, especially if the company’s bottom line did not suffer during the period of remote work.

Why so much respect for policy that is itself malleable in the hands of management? What if you had personal needs, a young child, a sick parent, and you had to take time away from the office to care for them, would you not ask for an exception? People do and are granted them all of the time. So this is just an example of people asking for that exception collectively, and to them it seems reasonable, because again, the company has literally just applied that policy for the past two years and the bottom line is stronger than ever.

> I cannot fathom that level of entitlement. It just doesn’t register in my brain.

Well, with that sort of mindset we would never have had the eight hour working day, or weekends, so to each their own.

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