Apple Employees Resist Calls For Return-To-Office

Apple Inc AAPL employees are opposing the iPhone maker's call for workers to return to the office in September, the Financial Times reports.
The employees argued being equally productive during two-plus years of flexible arrangements.
A group of workers formed Apple Together in 2021 as offices started functioning remotely due to the pandemic. The group circulated a petition internally, demanding "location flexible work."
Recently, CEO Tim Cook urged employees in and around the Cupertino headquarters to return to the office three days a week from September 5. Cook said he wanted to preserve the "in-person collaboration that is so essential to our culture."
Cook has insisted on returning since June 2021 while the Covid resurgence delayed his plans.
Apple Together urged Apple to allow employees to work with their "immediate manager" to decide their working arrangements, with immunity from "high-level approvals" and "complex procedures."
Apple Together looked to collect signatures this week before verifying and sending the results to executives.
Silicon Valley companies, including Meta Platforms Inc META Facebook, and Alphabet Inc GOOG GOOGL Google's engineers worked remotely during the pandemic, including relocation to other parts of the country.
Tesla Inc TSLA chief Elon Musk said "remote work is no longer acceptable," threatening workers with termination lest they did not show up.
In May, a prominent machine learning computer scientist, Ian Goodfellow, quit Apple for Google sibling DeepMind, reportedly due to Apple's return-to-work policy.
Price Action: AAPL shares traded lower by 1.73% at $168.55 in the premarket on the last check Monday.
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