Grindr could be striking back at its unionizing employees.
The company recently gave its work-from-home (WFH) employees an ultimatum: work at the office in two weeks or lose their jobs.
Employees at the gay hookup app previously announced they launched a union two weeks ago under the Grindr United flag, per Advocate.com.
Between A Rock And A Hard Place
Grindr employees are outraged by what they recently obtained. According to a report from Vice's Motherboard, Grindr leadership gave its employees a form on Aug. 4 asking them to move within 50 miles of their newly designated office or lose their jobs.
The form also stated that workers have until Aug. 17 to confirm whether they could comply with the new company policy or not. For those unaware, Grindr's three offices are in Chicago, Los Angeles, or the San Francisco Bay Area, per Business Insider.
As a result, WFH employees must travel and relocate themselves near one of the three Grindr offices soon or lose their job - a major commitment to ask from employees. However, this new policy may have been charged by office politics.
Grindr's decision to mandate WFH employees to move near their offices comes two weeks after employees announced their effort to unionize under the Communications Workers of America, Grindr United. The union's Twitter/X.com account detailed such a timeline in an Aug. 5 post.
he LGBTQ social networking platform Grindr displays its banner outside of the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) as the company goes public following its merger with special purpose acquisition company (SPAC) Tiga Acquisition Corp. on November 18, 2022 in New York City.
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Grindr employees formed Grindr United on July 20 due to company CEO George Arison's backing of anti-LGBTQ+ politicians. The union released a statement that around 100 eligible union members signed representation cards at Grindr.
These union members include Grindr employees responsible for cloud engineering, customer experience, design, engineering, IT, marketing, privacy, product, and quality assurance.
Despite this flurry of pro-union activity, Grindr elected not to answer the union's request to recognize its establishment voluntarily from July 20 to Aug. 3. It was only on Aug. 4 did the company address the situation with the ultimatum it sent.
"It's such a Bizarre coincidence that this happened just after we announced that we were unionizing," Grindr United stated on its Twitter/X.com account. It then said that Grindr's new policy is a "textbook" example of union busting.
Complications For Compliance
Although there are some who can comply with Grindr's new policy, many (if not most) of them could find compliance complicated to do.
Grindr United revealed that Grindr's employees are a "fully-distributed" workforce - its employees are scattered across the US, if not worldwide.
Additionally, Grindr doesn't have permanent offices in Chicago or the San Francisco Bay Area. As such, not only is it difficult to move into such places, but it is also hard to find lodgings near Grindr's Chicago and San Francisco Bay Area offices.
As a result, many Grindr employees will probably face termination before the two weeks the company gave as agrace period is up.
Grindr, meanwhile, explained that the move is to be expected, as the company has been telling employees to return to the office in April - before the unionization was announced, per Bloomberg.
Grindr employees countered the company's statement, saying that while it was already announced, Grindr said to expect the move after one or two quarters.
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