Employees of Grindr to Hold Union Elections

Grindr employees got approval from the National Labor Relations Board for holding an election to form a union. The ballots will become available November 22nd, and voting will end on December 13th.

According to Bloomberg Law, the government agency ruled in November that a group of about 100 employees can vote on whether they want to be represented by the Communications Workers of America, which guided the employees through its first round of voting earlier this year.

NLRB Regional Director Mori Rubi made the decision to allow Grindr employees to move forward with unionizing. According to Bloomberg, she countered arguments by the company’s management team that product managers should be considered supervisors and therefore be unable to unionize under the current labor laws. Instead, she argued that product managers don’t hold enough power in directing other employees, according to the report.

The election comes in the wake of the company’s decision to require employees to return to the office full-time, forcing many workers to relocate in less than a month. Grindr lost a significant percentage of workers who weren’t able to move to the cities where its selected offices are located and in accordance with the company’s timeline.

Just prior to the back-to-office mandate, Grindr employees had held a vote to initially move forward with the process of forming a union, something executives were against. Employees and union advisors felt that the mandate was a retaliatory move on the part of management.

Countering earnings trends from popular apps like Tinder and Bumble, Grindr has done well with revenue streams this year. The company’s revenue is 39 percent higher than this time last year, in stark contrast to the drops seen by Tinder and Bumble, according to Bloomberg. CEO George Arison attributes this increase in large part to the launch of a weekly subscription option. This model worked well as an entry point for users, he told Bloomberg, because they didn’t feel pressured to commit for a longer period of time.

Arison says the company doesn’t spend much on marketing, as little as one percent, which keeps costs down and helps the company focus on product. They are looking at launching new AI-based features next year, including Teleport, where users can match with others no matter where they live.

Arison also mentioned that the platform has users of all ages, and that this wide range of users tend to gravitate to the app because of its strong community. However, he wants to improve matching and plans to do so with AI.

In regard to the employees unionizing, Arison says it will have no impact on the company’s finances this year and that he’s “not concerned about that for next year.” He added that the return-to-office mandate allows them to find people who “really want to go after audacious goals.”