From today’s Yahoo News:
Management at the popular LGBTQ+ dating app Grindr is asking workers to return to the office or lose their jobs, prompting outrage from employees who say the move will upend their lives.
According to a form sent to workers at Grindr on August 4, obtained by Vice’s Motherboard, workers would need to confirm by August 17 whether or not they would move within 50 miles of Grindr’s three offices in Chicago, Los Angeles, or the San Francisco Bay Area or lose their jobs at the end of the month.
The news comes two weeks after employees announced their effort to unionize under the Communications Workers of America, Grindr United. Grindr United posted Sunday that the pivot to in-person work by the company is a “bizarre coincidence.”
The CWA has also filed a complaint with the National Labor Relations Board as a result of the return to office order, arguing that it is retaliation against union organizing.
Rowan Rosenthal, an organizing committee member at Grindr United CWA, told Insider that the move has been a significant hit for Grindr’s “majority queer” workplace, as well as for disabled members of the company.
“A big part of our vision as a union was to enshrine this benefit that we had in the past of remote first to accommodate those folks,” Rosenthal told Insider. “A lot of people who are disabled or have neurodivergence or mental health concerns or caring for somebody that they love, it just makes it a lot more possible to do your best work when you have the flexibility to work from your home or go into an office in your city a few times a week or month.”
Rosenthal told Insider that as of Monday, Grindr has given employees an opportunity to send in questions about the company’s new policy but still has not addressed union organizers.
Read the complete story here.