Amazon’s office mandate: The hidden power play behind workplace control

Amazon’s office mandate exposes workplace power dynamics and the need to rethink employer control.

In an abrupt move that has reignited debates about working from home, Amazon has recently ordered its white-collar employees to return to the office five days a week, abandoning any remnants of remote or hybrid work options. This decision reflects a growing trend among large corporations to reassert managerial control over the time and places of work, even in the face of employee preferences for flexible work arrangements. But what does this tell us about the deeper structures of employer authority and worker subordination in today’s world of work?

The dynamic between employers and employees, where workers are subject to managerial prerogatives, i.e. to the “command and control” of their bosses and supervisors, has long been a central issue in labour law and policy discussions. Yet, arguably, a critical examination of the deep roots of this subordination, particularly within modern democratic societies founded on the rule of law, remains scarce. Amazon’s recent decision offers a timely example of how deeply ingrained these power structures are and how they continue to shape contemporary work relations in significant and not-so-subtle ways.

For decades, the concept of work subordination has widely been framed within the classic theory of the firm, where employees exchange their labour for wages under the direction of their employer. However, this conventional understanding does not fully capture the complexities of employer authority or the extent to which workers are subjected to disciplinary mechanisms embedded in the modern employment contract. The received notion of free negotiation of work arrangements – a rhetoric that has been used to construct discourses around workplace authority since the nineteenth century – crumbles under scrutiny when viewed through a historical lens. In reality, work arrangements have always been heavily shaped by disciplinary approaches that were often authoritarian in nature and were surrounded by a wide array of criminal and quasi-criminal legal instruments to underpin employer powers.

Amazon’s return-to-office directive highlights a key issue: the authority exercised by employers often appears as a private contractual matter, a simple agreement between two parties. Yet, as we show in a recent article, this authority has its roots in public law and, at times, even authoritarian motives. The power dynamics between employers and employees are not just about market transactions; they are steeped in a history of control and subordination enforced by government bodies and public policies. In Amazon’s case, the decision to mandate a full-time return to the office is a prominent example of the ongoing dominance of employer authority cloaked in efficiency and productivity rhetoric. 

Currently, the law in most countries does not even require that Amazon shows any shred of evidence that remote and hybrid work are stifling its productivity before ordering people back to the office five days per week. In our article, we discuss how lawmakers and courts tend to be too deferent to employers’ unilateral decisions, even if they materially affect workers’ lives. They are reluctant to question their motivations except in extreme circumstances such as dismissals. Besides, unfettered managerial prerogatives can even be abused to circumvent the law in those cases.

It has been reported that back-to-office mandates are being issued as a strategic move to convince employees to quit voluntarily, thus reducing the workforce without triggering costly severance packages or the need to go through collective dismissal procedures. By making the work environment less desirable—especially for employees who have become accustomed to remote or hybrid arrangements—companies can indirectly push workers to resign, sidestepping legal obligations that would arise in a traditional layoff scenario. This approach allows employers to quietly trim their workforce while avoiding the reputational and financial costs associated with mass layoffs and severances and needing to inform and consult with worker representatives.

Acknowledging the public origins of employer managerial powers should lead to more critical scrutiny of decisions like Amazon’s. Currently, we discuss in our article, courts are too timid when deciding over the reasonableness of workplace policies except in cases of harassment, constructive dismissal, or egregious managerial misconduct. We argue that their hesitancy to question the merits of even the most capricious company decisions is rooted in the superficial idea that those decisions are of a mere contractual nature and they have no business in meddling in private matters. Understanding how much public and governmental authority has historically imbued employment contracts and private workplaces is essential to overcome this deference to employer decisions of courts and public bodies. 

A broader conversation about the legitimacy of such unilateral decisions in democratic societies is long overdue. Presently, democratically elected governments must often meet severe proportionality standards and avoid arbitrariness in exercising their powers. If employer authority is rooted in public law and policy, as we demonstrate, why are managers left off the hook when they show no good reason for their decisions? Why are they often not even required to come up with such reasons? Should employers wield this much power over the daily lives of their employees without scrutiny? Why can they enforce “back-to-office” mandates at whim, especially in an era when remote work has proven feasible and desirable for many? Should the undeniable societal benefits of hybrid work in terms of better work-life balance, reduced commuting times, and lower environmental costs be cast aside because managers unilaterally say so?

Historically, collective bargaining and action have been one of the most effective ways of taming managerial prerogatives and the impact of employer authority on workers’ lives. We believe that collective rights must continue to play this role and that forms of codetermination should be introduced and strengthened where they exist to bolster democracy at work. However, where collective action is insufficient or worker representatives are not present, as is the case in a growing number of workplaces, lawmakers and courts should do their part, avoiding hiding behind the veneer of private nature that coats employer authority and keeping managerial decisions to more stringent standards of reasonableness and proportionality.

As Amazon’s employees set to return to their offices, the broader question remains: are we, as a society, ready to rethink the balance of power between employers and employees? And how can we ensure that worker autonomy and freedom from arbitrary decisions is respected in an age where the line between public and private authority continues to blur?