One of Amazon’s (AMZN.O) top executives defended the new, controversial 5-day-per-week in-office policy on Thursday, saying those who do not support it can leave for another company.
Speaking at an all-hands meeting for AWS, unit CEO Matt Garman said nine out of 10 workers he has spoken with support the new policy, which takes effect in January, according to a transcript reviewed by Reuters.
Those who do not wish to work for Amazon in-office five days per week can quit, he suggested.
Would really suck if people said “fuck it”, did return to work but intentionally decreased productivity. Best to get laid off than quit.
Amazon policy is to stack rank all of its employees and regularly fire anyone in the bottom tranche. So any kind of deliberate slowdown would need to be incredibly well-coordinated. Even then, there would inevitably be a ton of attrition as the automatic Fire Everyone triggers started kicking in.
Its not enough to play by the rules with a company as vast and encompassing as Amazon. You need to take it a step further and start sabotaging the anti-organizing functions of the company. Start shoving monkey wrenches in the employee monitoring systems. Start dismantling the automation that allows the business to function at such a breakneck pace. You’ve got to get in there and break the machine before it breaks you.
Sometimes union take actions that are less severe than outright striking: