Legal

Nearly half of Grindr employees quit the company after they were given an ultimatum to return to work in the office.

Company executives announced the new workplace policy on an all-employee call in early August, and gave employees two weeks to decide whether they would agree to work in the office or hand in their resignation. Executives demanded employees relocate to one of the Grindr offices in Los Angeles, San Francisco, New York, Chicago, or Washington D.C.

According to CNN, 80 of Grindr’s 178 workers who had turned down the in-office mandate were forced to quit by the end of August. Most of these employees were remote workers, and many said that this would put an undue burden on them, including finding housing and schools for their children to attend in a new city.

Employees have also been vocal about Grindr executives using the new policy as a retaliatory tactic against employees, who only weeks before voted to organize a union, demanding fair wages and equal treatment for all employees. Grindr employees worked in partnership with the CWA (Communication Workers of America) to initiate.

In time for students headed off to college, Tinder has released a new safety guide to help them navigate dating on campus.

According to Campus Safety Magazine, Tinder sees the highest number of new eighteen-year-old users in August and September when the school year begins. And while freshmen are excited to meet new people and date, dating violence is common on college campuses. Tinder wanted to take a proactive step and provide some guidance.

Tinder’s “Campus Crush Dating Guide” provides advice to help users meet people and date more safely, including knowing their self-worth and what they want from dating. The app points out the large number of users on college campuses, and encourages users to write complete bios, post at least four photos, and list their interests (with an emphasis on music preferences), so that they can attract the right matches.

Match Group and its partner Garbo, a nonprofit provider of background checks, have parted ways, according to a story that broke in The Wall Street Journal.

Garbo announced in a blog post that it will be shutting down its consumer-facing business as a result of the split. While details were not shared about exactly what happened, Garbo blamed Match Group for both the difference in priorities and the execution of the service on its platform.

Garbo’s service was integrated into Match Group’s Tinder platform and allowed users run background checks on potential dates using just a name and phone number. Garbo would give them a report stating if the person had any public reports issued against them for past violence, arrests, convictions and restraining orders.

Grindr has issued a return-to-the-office policy for all workers, forcing them to relocate to one of the company’s three main offices by October 3rd or lose their jobs. Employees say this is a retaliatory move, since it comes two weeks after they announced their plan to form a union.

According to Vice, who obtained the certification form that was sent to workers, the policy states that employees must move to within 50 miles of their newly designated office or they will lose their jobs.

Workers were given the choice to move to either Chicago (for the engineering team), and Los Angeles or San Francisco (for the product and design teams), and if they were not willing to relocate, their jobs would end August 31st. Workers were offered six months’ severance pay and healthcare benefits if they lost their jobs, according to the memo issued by the company.

A supermajority of Grindr employees have launched a campaign to form a union, announcing the plan via the Communication Workers of America (CWA) to collectively fight for layoff protections, preserve current benefits, add cost of living pay raises, and strengthen LGBTQ+ rights in the workplace, among other demands.

According to Grindr United’s press release announcing its formation, about 100 eligible members from departments across the company including cloud engineering, customer experience, design, engineering, IT, marketing, privacy, product and quality assurance signed representation cards at Grindr.

Employees are asking Grindr management to recognize their union, but if they refuse, employees will petition the National Labor Relations Board to hold an election, according to The Los Angeles Times. (U.S. Labor law allows companies to negotiate and recognize a union once they have signed up a majority of employees (which Grindr United has), or to hold out for a government-run election.)

The former chief privacy officer at Grindr says the company fired him after he raised concerns about privacy violations on the platform, according to the lawsuit he filed in a state court in Los Angeles.

Ron De Jesus claimed in the lawsuit that the LGBTQ+ company willfully ignored his concerns about its “alarming” privacy practices concerning personal user data, according to Bloomberg Law, including retaining sensitive data like nude photos without the consent or knowledge of the user. The document alleges the company also collected the HIV status of users, even after they deleted their accounts.

"In other words, deleted users' private communications, including naked photos and other highly sensitive content, such as HIV status are not only still stored in Grindr's systems, but also its vendor systems, and potentially retrievable by any employee of Grindr, or its third-party support vendor, through a backdoor to Grindr's application," De Jesus claimed in the lawsuit, according to Business Insider.