Apple employees have sent a second petition letter in two months asking for more flexible conditions. The company has only agreed to allow remote work two days a week, with exceptions. The new petition argues that it is too early for employees to return to the office and that management should have more flexibility. So far, Apple has not responded to the request.
Not all companies are looking forward to a remote future after the pandemic. Wall Street giants were the first to take a firm stand against remote work, with few exceptions. In the tech industry, Apple strongly encouraged employees to work from home when the pandemic started. But now that things are getting back to normal, Apple asked staff to work from the office again. And employees are not happy.
Apple Employees Second Petition Letter to Allow Remote Work
After Tim Cook announced via email that all employees should return to the office by June 21st, employees sent the first letter asking for more flexibility. So far, Apple has only agreed to allow employees to work from home twice a week.
In this second petition letter posted on Monday, employees ask the company to allow full-time remote work, with some restrictions. Additionally, they are proposing two different flexible adaptations:
1. Local WFH Temporary Pilot Agreement: Employees who want to continue working from home as they don’t feel comfortable in the office because of the pandemic situation.
2. Remote WFH Temporary Pilot Agreement: For those employees whose living situations have become incompatible with commuting to an office. This agreement also highlights that employees’ compensation may be adjusted based on location.
An Apple employee posted the letter in a Slack channel with more than 6,000 employees, including corporate employees. The letter states that employees continue to be concerned with the onsite policy, especially because covid cases are rising again.
“We continue to be concerned that this one-size-fits-all solution is causing many of our colleagues to question their future at Apple. With COVID-19 numbers rising again around the world, vaccines proving less effective against the Delta variant, and the long-term effects of infection not well understood, it is too early to force those with concerns to come back to the office.”
The letter cites an internal survey of 1,100 employees where 68% of respondents strongly agreed that Apple’s lack of location flexibility could potentially make them leave the company.
