16,000 Amazon workers launched a petition to fight CEO Andy Jassy’s mandate to return to office (Seattle: real estate, apartments)

[Actofvalor]

16,000 Amazon workers have joined a Slack channel and launched a petition to fight CEO Andy Jassy’s mandate to return to the office



https://finance.yahoo.com/news/16-00...110817418.html

[Actofvalor]

I just know there are 45,000 employees working in Amazon downtown Seattle.


Why Amazon's offices are in downtown? Everybody knows downtown is much more expensive than suburban area, and employees with school age kids don't like working in downtown.



World wide, no big size company selects downtown as their engineering team's office.

[usernametaken]

And they picked even more expensive downtown Bellevue for 25,000 additional employees.

Yakima got no votes.

[Hemlock140]

Several of our Sammamish neighbors work at Amazon SLU, and one drives a vanpool van. The other has just gone from one day in the office to 3, and drives there. They moved from an apartment to buy here when their oldest kid was ready to start school. Amazon, like Microsoft, also has employee commute shuttle buses.

[87112]

This region of ours specifically Downtown, needs help. Downright urgent help. Whether its an influx of workers or federal stimulus money to get Downtown to where it can compete with our neighbors to the North.

Was in Vancouver BC the other day downtown. The difference is really big, Vancouver BC city core is on another level with shopping, street activity. The mall downtown Pacific Place is booming.

The Waterfront is world class. No wonder people are willing to pay an average rent for 2400 to 2500 for a one bedroom up there.

[Actofvalor]

Does Amazon own the apartments in downtown Seattle? What benefit they get by packing some many people in downtown?

[oregonwoodsmoke]

I suppose it boils down to whether or not they want a job. They don't have to move back into town. There seems to be a worker shortage, so they can always go and work for someone else.

[Hemlock140]

Originally Posted by Actofvalor

Does Amazon own the apartments in downtown Seattle? What benefit they get by packing some many people in downtown?

The advantage to them is that their expensive building is not sitting empty gathering dust, and they can once again have meetings in person, with easier opportunities for collaboration. The bigger advantage is to the other local merchants near their offices.

[Actofvalor]

Originally Posted by Hemlock140

The advantage to them is that their expensive building is not sitting empty gathering dust, and they can once again have meetings in person, with easier opportunities for collaboration. The bigger advantage is to the other local merchants near their offices.

If Amazon has a suburban campus like Microsoft, they can save a lot of money.

I highly suspect Amazon or some of their executives own the apartments in downtown, which they can rent to young new graduate who work in Amazon downtown. That's the only reason I can think why Amazon has huge downtown offices.

[jabogitlu]

$2500 for a one bedroom is a very reasonable rate for downtown Seattle. Honestly, $2500 in Cap Hill is reasonable. I assume we're talking Class A properties, since you're mentioning waterfront. I think those rents are even somewhat low.

The short term benefit for Amazon is use of owned real estate. The long term benefit is synergy of creativity to bring net positive value to justify those real estate investments.

They just need to ease folks into this a bit more. They should've started "pick a day a week" several months ago. They should be at 2 days a week, based on what your team wants, right now. If their goal is 3 days a week, fine, go for it, but phase it in over an 18-month span and there'll be a lot less revolt.