The boss of the American conglomerate Amazon warned, in mid-September, the employees of its administrative services (300,000 to 350,000 people worldwide) that they would have to return full time to the office (as before the pandemic), starting of January, and stop teleworking. Amazon had already required, in February 2023, a presence three days a week. From January 2, they will have to be there five days a week, said Andy Jassy, the group’s CEO.
“We find that it is easier for our employees to learn, design, train and strengthen our culture; collaborating, exchanging and inventing are simpler and more effective; teaching and learning from each other is easier; and teams tend to be better connected to each other,” he said in an internal message.
Strike at Ubisoft
These same arguments were put forward by the management of Ubisoft France to demand at least three days of presence in the office per week from its employees. “Creativity is stimulated by interpersonal interactions, informal conversations and collaboration around the same table,” the group’s management wrote in mid-September in an email sent to its employees.
Following this decision, several unions called employees of the French video game publisher to a three-day strike, on October 15, to protest against what they consider to be a “forced” return to face-to-face work. With the generalization of teleworking at the time of confinement, “many of our colleagues have built or rebuilt their lives (family life, housing, parenthood, etc.) and simply cannot return to previous conditions”, affirmed the workers’ union of video games (STJV) in a press release. “The consequence of his decision will be the loss of employment of our colleagues, the disorganization of production and the drastic increase in psychosocial risks for those who remain,” he warned.
The unions are demanding the opening of “real negotiations” on teleworking, as well as an increase in salaries, a subject which caused a major movement in February within Ubisoft.
