Two weeks after workers at the company announced a union drive, Grindr management has issued a return-to-office policy that workers say is retaliatory.
Grindr needs a new legal team. They’re gonna get reamed for this one:
What is considered an “unfair labor practice?”
In Section 8 of the NLRA, there are a number of illegal activities that are considered “unfair labor practices,” or ULPs. ULPs are illegal whether they are engaged in by employers or by unions.
A few examples of what is considered an “unfair labor practice” are: (1) interfering with, restraining, or coercing employees in the exercise of the rights guaranteed by the NLRA, (2) dominating or interfering with the formation or administration of a labor organization (3) discrimination in regard to hire or tenure of employment or any condition of employment to discourage membership in a labor organization
Examples of Employer Conduct Which Violate the NLRA Are:
Threatening employees with loss of jobs or benefits if they join or vote for a union or engage in protected concerted activity.
Threatening to close the plant if employees select a union to represent them.
Questioning employees about their union sympathies or activities in circumstances that tend to interfere with, restrain or coerce employees in the exercise of their rights under the Act.
Promising benefits to employees to discourage their union support.
Transferring, laying off, terminating or assigning employees more difficult work tasks because they engaged in union or protected concerted activity.
The biggest fuck up here is that one of the offices they’re telling the employees to move to doesn’t even exist yet:
“It’s not even a well-drawn-out plan,” said McGee, who mainly works out of their home in New York City. “They have not told us where the office in the Bay Area is going to be. If this was indeed planned for months as they’re claiming, why isn’t there a lease? They’ve sublet a WeWork space that I would wager, given the WeWork space that we have in New York, is not big enough for the entire product design team that they’ve told to move to California. So where do they expect us to be working?”
This would be the equivalent of transfer and plant closure, couched in “return to office” speak. The fact that they did it immediately after the union organizing effort doesn’t speak well to their chances in court.
All good points. However, the question comes down to “How much money can they throw at legal to make the problem go away?” Way more than the employees who’re getting the short end of the stick, that’s for sure.
Grindr needs a new legal team. They’re gonna get reamed for this one:
Sauce
The biggest fuck up here is that one of the offices they’re telling the employees to move to doesn’t even exist yet:
This would be the equivalent of transfer and plant closure, couched in “return to office” speak. The fact that they did it immediately after the union organizing effort doesn’t speak well to their chances in court.
All good points. However, the question comes down to “How much money can they throw at legal to make the problem go away?” Way more than the employees who’re getting the short end of the stick, that’s for sure.