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    Delays, More Masks and Mandatory Shots: Virus Surge Disrupts Office-Return Plans

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    A wave of the contagious Delta variant is causing companies to reconsider when they will require employees to return, and what health requirements should be in place when they do.Several hospital systems that previously held off making vaccines mandatory for health care workers are now willing to do so. Google employees in California who have voluntarily returned to the office are again wearing masks indoors. Goldman Sachs is considering whether to reinstitute testing for fully vaccinated employees in the company’s New York City offices, according to a person familiar with the situation who spoke on the condition of anonymity because nothing had been decided. And on Monday, Apple told its work force that it would push back its return-to-office date from September to October.When companies began announcing tentative return-to-office plans this spring, there was a sense of optimism behind the messages. Covid cases were dwindling in the United States as the vaccine rollout picked up pace. Employers largely hoped their workers would get shots on their own, motivated by raffle tickets, paid time off and other perks, if not by the consensus of the medical community.In recent days, that tone has suddenly shifted. The Delta variant, a more contagious version of the coronavirus, is sweeping through the country. Fewer than half of Americans are fully vaccinated, exacerbating the situation. Nationally, the daily average of new coronavirus infections surged 180 percent in 14 days to 45,343 by Thursday, and deaths — a lagging number — are up 30 percent from two weeks ago, to nearly 252, according to New York Times case counts. Vaccines are still unavailable for children under 12, many of whom are preparing for an in-person return to school this fall.America’s business leaders are being forced to decide whether to reverse reopening plans or to mandate vaccinations.George Etheredge for The New York TimesIt all adds up to a difficult calculation for America’s business leaders, who hoped the country would already be fully on a path to normalcy, with employees getting back to offices. Instead, individual companies are now being forced to make tough decisions that they had hoped could be avoided, such as whether to reverse reopening plans or institute vaccine mandates for employees. All the while, they continue to grapple with the unpredictable nature of the pandemic.“It’s emotionally draining on all of us, and it drives the top management teams crazy,” said Bob Sutton, a psychology professor at Stanford University who studies leadership and organizations. He said some executives he had advised were “pulling their hair out” over what to do.For employers wary of the legal ramifications and political backlash of mandating a vaccine, the tide has begun to turn, if ever so slightly.“At the beginning, there were a lot of employers that were concerned about jumping in too soon and being the one out front — it is a divisive issue,” said David Barron, a labor and employment lawyer at the law firm Cozen O’Connor. “The calculus starts to shift a little bit when you see another spike.”Mayor Bill de Blasio of New York on Friday encouraged private employers to require workers to get vaccinated. He also said the city might broaden the number of city workers required to get vaccinated or to be tested weekly.Recent court decisions have upheld employers’ rights to require vaccinations, including a ruling that said Houston Methodist Hospital could require health care workers to get shots. On Monday, a federal judge ruled that Indiana University could require students to be vaccinated as well.At a vaccination center in New York. Vaccine mandates are still far from the dominant approach that executives are taking.Kevin Hagen for The New York Times“The legal authority continues to line up on the side of employers being allowed to mandate vaccines if they choose to,” said Douglas Brayley, an employment lawyer at the global law firm Ropes & Gray.When Twitter reopened its San Francisco office this month at 50 percent capacity for those who wanted to go back, only vaccinated workers were allowed inside. In June, a civilian group that oversees the Los Angeles Police Department was examining the possibility of requiring police officers to get shots. And numerous colleges have required students and staff to be fully inoculated before they step foot on campus in the fall.“The recent news of Delta surging in some places is just adding to that determination to be as safe as we possibly can,” said Tim Killeen, the president of the University of Illinois System, which instituted a vaccine requirement Wednesday.Novant Health, a North Carolina-based health care company with more than 35,000 employees, said Thursday that it would make vaccinations mandatory for its workers by Sept. 15. Its efforts to overcome vaccine hesitancy through education and making shots easily accessible had stagnated.“Now that almost four billion doses of vaccine have been given around the world, and we see that it’s safe and effective, we see that the Delta variant is obviously here, and we have it in our communities, and that almost all the patients being added to our hospitals are unvaccinated, the time was right to say, ‘We’ve got to move forward with requiring vaccines of our team members,’” Dr. David Priest, the company’s chief safety officer, said.For others, high voluntary vaccination rates among employees have made requiring the shot simpler. Morgan Stanley, the investment banking firm, is requiring employees and guests at its New York offices to be fully vaccinated, according to a person familiar with the situation who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss company protocols. By the time it imposed the mandate in June, 90 percent of its employees were vaccinated.Vaccine mandates are still not the approach that most companies are taking. And the risk that the coronavirus poses to much of the population is far from what it was at the worst of the pandemic. New cases, hospitalizations and deaths remain at a small fraction of their previous peaks, largely localized to areas with low vaccination rates. Vaccines remain effective against the worst outcomes of Covid-19, including from the Delta variant.“The big question is not so much ‘Can we keep workers safe in our buildings?’ but ‘Will workers feel comfortable enough coming back, even if good controls are in place?’” said Joseph Allen, an associate professor at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health who advises companies on Covid-19 strategies. “There’s a renewed anxiety that maybe started to dissipate in the spring — but it’s back.”When Twitter reopened its San Francisco office at half capacity for those who wanted to return, only vaccinated workers were allowed inside.Cayce Clifford for The New York TimesThat tension may make it more difficult to persuade workers to return to the office. In California’s Silicon Valley, tech companies largely embraced the new era of remote work during the pandemic. But not all have been eager to let their employees stay home for good..css-1xzcza9{list-style-type:disc;padding-inline-start:1em;}.css-3btd0c{font-family:nyt-franklin,helvetica,arial,sans-serif;font-size:1rem;line-height:1.375rem;color:#333;margin-bottom:0.78125rem;}@media (min-width:740px){.css-3btd0c{font-size:1.0625rem;line-height:1.5rem;margin-bottom:0.9375rem;}}.css-3btd0c strong{font-weight:600;}.css-3btd0c em{font-style:italic;}.css-w739ur{margin:0 auto 5px;font-family:nyt-franklin,helvetica,arial,sans-serif;font-weight:700;font-size:1.125rem;line-height:1.3125rem;color:#121212;}#NYT_BELOW_MAIN_CONTENT_REGION .css-w739ur{font-family:nyt-cheltenham,georgia,’times new roman’,times,serif;font-weight:700;font-size:1.375rem;line-height:1.625rem;}@media (min-width:740px){#NYT_BELOW_MAIN_CONTENT_REGION .css-w739ur{font-size:1.6875rem;line-height:1.875rem;}}@media (min-width:740px){.css-w739ur{font-size:1.25rem;line-height:1.4375rem;}}.css-9s9ecg{margin-bottom:15px;}.css-uf1ume{display:-webkit-box;display:-webkit-flex;display:-ms-flexbox;display:flex;-webkit-box-pack:justify;-webkit-justify-content:space-between;-ms-flex-pack:justify;justify-content:space-between;}.css-wxi1cx{display:-webkit-box;display:-webkit-flex;display:-ms-flexbox;display:flex;-webkit-flex-direction:column;-ms-flex-direction:column;flex-direction:column;-webkit-align-self:flex-end;-ms-flex-item-align:end;align-self:flex-end;}.css-12vbvwq{background-color:white;border:1px solid #e2e2e2;width:calc(100% – 40px);max-width:600px;margin:1.5rem auto 1.9rem;padding:15px;box-sizing:border-box;}@media (min-width:740px){.css-12vbvwq{padding:20px;width:100%;}}.css-12vbvwq:focus{outline:1px solid #e2e2e2;}#NYT_BELOW_MAIN_CONTENT_REGION .css-12vbvwq{border:none;padding:10px 0 0;border-top:2px solid #121212;}.css-12vbvwq[data-truncated] .css-rdoyk0{-webkit-transform:rotate(0deg);-ms-transform:rotate(0deg);transform:rotate(0deg);}.css-12vbvwq[data-truncated] .css-eb027h{max-height:300px;overflow:hidden;-webkit-transition:none;transition:none;}.css-12vbvwq[data-truncated] .css-5gimkt:after{content:’See more’;}.css-12vbvwq[data-truncated] .css-6mllg9{opacity:1;}.css-qjk116{margin:0 auto;overflow:hidden;}.css-qjk116 strong{font-weight:700;}.css-qjk116 em{font-style:italic;}.css-qjk116 a{color:#326891;-webkit-text-decoration:underline;text-decoration:underline;text-underline-offset:1px;-webkit-text-decoration-thickness:1px;text-decoration-thickness:1px;-webkit-text-decoration-color:#326891;text-decoration-color:#326891;}.css-qjk116 a:visited{color:#326891;-webkit-text-decoration-color:#326891;text-decoration-color:#326891;}.css-qjk116 a:hover{-webkit-text-decoration:none;text-decoration:none;}In June, Apple’s chief executive, Tim Cook, told employees that they would be required to return to the office at least three days a week, starting in September. About 1,800 employees sent Mr. Cook a letter calling for a more flexible approach.He did not respond, but days later Apple posted an internal video in which company executives doubled down on bringing workers back to the office. In the video, Dr. Sumbul Desai, who helps run Apple’s digital health division, encouraged workers to get vaccinated but stopped short of saying they would be required to, according to a transcript viewed by The Times.The video didn’t sit well with some employees.“OK, you want me to put my life on the line to come back to the office, which will also decrease my productivity, and you’re not giving me any logic on why I actually need to do that?” said Ashley Gjovik, a senior engineering program manager.When the company delayed its return-to-office date on Monday, a group of employees drafted a new letter, proposing a one-year pilot program in which people could work from home full time if they chose to. The letter said an informal survey of more than 1,000 Apple employees found that roughly two-thirds would question their future at the company if they were required to return to the office. In Los Angeles, Endeavor, the parent company of the William Morris Endeavor talent agency, reopened its Beverly Hills headquarters this month. But it decided to shut down again last week when the county reimposed its indoor mask mandate in the face of surging case counts. An Endeavor spokesman said the company had decided that enforcement would be too difficult and would hinder group meetings.The employment website Indeed had been targeting Sept. 7 as the date when it would start bringing workers back on a hybrid basis. Now it has begun to reconsider those plans, the company’s senior vice president of human resources, Paul Wolfe, said, “because of the Delta variant.”Some companies said the recent spike in cases had not yet affected their return-to-office planning. Facebook still intends to reopen at 50 percent capacity by early September. IBM plans to open its U.S. offices in early September, with fully vaccinated employees free to go without a mask, and Royal Dutch Shell, the gas company, has been gradually lifting restrictions in its Houston offices, prompting more of its workers to return.Hewlett Packard Enterprise began allowing employees to return to its offices Monday, bolstered by a survey of its California employees that found 94 percent were fully vaccinated.“That gives us an added layer of comfort,” a company spokesman, Adam Bauer, said.Wells Fargo told its employees on July 16 that it would begin to bring employees currently working remotely back to the office on Sept. 7. But unlike banks that earlier called workers back with declarative language ringing in a new stage of the pandemic, the memo, sent by the bank’s chief operating officer, Scott Powell, had a notable degree of caution.“The timing communicated in this message is dependent on our assumption that the pandemic continues to remain stable or further improves,” Mr. Powell wrote. “We continue to actively monitor the situation and any developments, including new variants.”Reporting was contributed by More

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    How Times Reporters Investigated Amazon Employment Practices

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    A recent Times project that examined how the tech giant manages its workers took months of reporting and hundreds of interviews.Times Insider explains who we are and what we do, and delivers behind-the-scenes insights into how our journalism comes together.Last summer, amid a hiring spree at Amazon so gigantic it left historians struggling for comparisons, Karen Weise, a Times reporter who covers the company from Seattle, brought up a puzzling question to her editors. Approaching the million-worker mark, Amazon was on track to becoming the largest private employer in the United States. Yet, in spite of solid wages and generous benefits, it was quickly cycling through employees. Why?Executives had an “almost palpable fear of running out of workers,” she said later.In August, she got a call from Jodi Kantor, a Times reporter in Brooklyn who was talking to workers from a variety of industries who were struggling with strict rules about time and attendance during the pandemic. She wanted to look more closely at “time off task,” or T.O.T., Amazon’s practice of monitoring workers by the second and disciplining them for too many unexcused pauses.One hot day in a New York City park, Ms. Kantor met with Dayana Santos, an employee who had been repeatedly praised by her bosses but fired for too much T.O.T. during one bad day filled with mishaps she said were beyond her control. Ms. Santos’s story raised fairness questions, and a business one: Why would Amazon, voracious for workers, fire a good employee?Those questions led to a recent Times investigative report on the company that revealed systemic problems in its model for managing workers, such as unbridled turnover, minimal human contact, an error-plagued leave system, delayed benefits and mistaken firings.Ms. Santos had worked at JFK8 on Staten Island, a compelling setting for a potential investigation: the only Amazon fulfillment center in the nation’s largest city, operating under maximum pandemic pressure to deliver to homebound customers. Other media outlets had examined working conditions, injury rates and numerous other aspects of Amazon warehouses. The Times reporters, focusing on JFK8, had a different goal: to understand the connection between the company’s employment model and its astonishing success. They set out to chronicle Amazon’s core relationship with its humongous, growing work force — who got hired and fired, and the rules, systems and assumptions that governed everything in between.But JFK8 was vast — about 5,000 employees in a space the size of 15 football fields — and managers and human resources workers were reluctant to talk. Ms. Weise contacted corporate employees, many of whom never responded. To help tackle the huge project, Grace Ashford, a researcher on the Investigations desk, joined the team. Together she and Ms. Kantor spent many hours on the phone and at the bus stop outside JFK8, including on Prime Day, asking workers about their experiences.Often, Ms. Kantor and Ms. Ashford found that new hires were grateful for the pay but left after a few weeks. “Amazon was a lifeline for them, until it wasn’t,” Ms. Ashford said.Knowing that their requests to interview Amazon’s most senior executives were long shots, the reporters had to find creative ways of understanding the culture inside JFK8. They spoke with human resources staff and corporate leaders, who described Amazon’s glitchy, strained systems and the business challenge of maintaining staff during a public health emergency.Ms. Weise took masked walks with Paul Stroup, a data scientist who had tried to steer Amazon through the crisis but left thinking Amazon could do better by its workers. Ms. Kantor spent the fall shadowing Ann Castillo, who was struggling with Amazon’s treatment of her severely ill husband, a JFK8 veteran.Back office employees at a different location, in Costa Rica, described the partial collapse of the company’s leave systems early in the pandemic, leading to problems like halted benefits for Mr. Castillo.Data obtained through public records showed that Amazon’s overall work force was largely Black and Latino, but internal documents revealed that Black workers at JFK8 were disproportionately fired.After Ms. Santos, the worker fired for T.O.T., applied for unemployment, Amazon contested her benefits. In an obscure New York administrative court, the company filed internal policy memos that provided a rare inside glimpse of the T.O.T. system.After almost 200 interviews, a picture emerged of a company that “seemed far more precise with packages than people,” Ms. Kantor said. Amazon had tried to grow its business quickly by creating a giant semi-automated machine for hiring and managing — but that system often stumbled.Ms. Weise was able to confirm that while the company boasted of job creation, turnover at the warehouses was roughly 150 percent a year — a figure never reported before — meaning Amazon had to replace the equivalent of its entire warehouse work force every eight months.That number, and the entire project, took on deeper meaning when David Niekerk, the architect of Amazon’s warehouse human resources system, told her the turnover was more or less by design. Jeff Bezos, Amazon’s founder and chief executive, had sought to avoid an entrenched work force, fearing laziness and a “march to mediocrity.” So upward mobility and raises for warehouse workers were limited.As Ms. Kantor wrote and Ms. Ashford continued to report, Ms. Weise led a delicate, six-week effort to confirm the voluminous information in the story with Amazon and garner its responses. By then, the company had provided some input, including a tour of JFK8 by the general manager and an interview with Ofori Agboka, head of human resources for the warehouses, who defended Amazon but acknowledged that the company had leaned too heavily on technology and self-service.As part of the fact-checking process, the reporters repeatedly asked Amazon about the T.O.T. policy and Ms. Santos’s firing. Shortly before the article was published, Amazon announced an immediate policy change: No longer could someone be fired for one bad day. Ms. Santos and others were eligible for rehire.The article elicited a strong public reaction, tips from other employees who want to tell their stories and an outpouring of reader comments. (“It was not Bezos who made Amazon. It was all of us who bought from it,” one said.) On July 1, Amazon announced an addition to its leadership principles — critical guidelines for internal decisions and management — that focused on being a better employer.In coming months, the focus is likely to be on whether Amazon will change some of the practices that have propelled it to dominance, either because of internal action or outside force.“They say that broadly, their work force is happy, and their internal surveys say that more than 90 percent would recommend working at Amazon to a friend,” Ms. Weise said.“But 150 percent turnover in a year means that something isn’t working for many people.” More

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    U.S. asks Mexico to review a second complaint about labor violations in its auto industry.

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    The Biden administration is invoking provisions in a new trade agreement to ask Mexico to look into accusations of labor violations at an auto-parts plant near the U.S. border.The action, announced Wednesday by the Labor Department and the Office of the United States Trade Representative, follows a complaint by groups including the A.F.L.-C.I.O., the nation’s largest federation of unions, that workers were being denied the rights of free association and collective bargaining.The A.F.L.-C.I.O. said workers at the Tridonex plant in Matamoros, across the border from Brownsville, Texas, had been harassed and fired over their efforts to organize with an independent union in place of one controlled by the company. Tridonex is owned by Cardone Industries, an aftermarket auto-parts manufacturer based in Philadelphia.It is the second time that the United States has sought Mexican review of a labor rights matter under the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement, which took effect last summer. The accord has a “rapid response” mechanism that provides for complaints to be brought against and for penalties to be applied to an individual factory.“This announcement demonstrates our commitment to using the tools in the agreement to stand up for workers at home and abroad,” Katherine Tai, the U.S. trade representative, said in a statement, noting that Mexico has 10 days to agree to conduct a review and, if it agrees, 45 days to remedy the situation.Last month the United States asked Mexico to review whether labor violations had occurred at a General Motors plant in the central state of Guanajuato in connection with a recent vote on a collective bargaining agreement. Mexico agreed to the request the same day. More

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    For Many Workers, Change in Mask Policy Is a Nightmare

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    After a shift by the C.D.C., employers withdrew mask policies that workers felt were protecting them from unvaccinated customers.The Kroger supermarket in Yorktown, Va., is in a county where mask wearing can be casual at best. Yet for months, the store urged patrons to cover their noses and mouths, and almost everyone complied. More

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    A New Crop in Pennsylvania: Warehouses

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    OREFIELD, Pa. — From his office in an old barn on a turkey farm, David Jaindl watches a towering flat-screen TV with video feeds from the hatchery to the processing room, where the birds are butchered. Mr. Jaindl is a third-generation farmer in Pennsylvania’s Lehigh Valley. His turkeys are sold at Whole Foods and served at the White House on Thanksgiving. More

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    U.S. Asks Mexico to Investigate Labor Issues at G.M. Facility

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    The administration learned of what appeared to be “serious violations” of labor rights, it said, and is using a new tool in the North American trade deal to seek a review.WASHINGTON — The Biden administration announced on Wednesday that it was asking Mexico to review whether labor violations had occurred at a General Motors facility in the country, a significant step using a new labor enforcement tool in the revised North American trade deal.The administration is seeking the review under the novel “rapid response” mechanism in the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement, which replaced the North American Free Trade Agreement and took effect last summer. Under the mechanism, penalties can be brought against a specific factory for violating workers’ rights of free association and collective bargaining.The administration “received information appearing to indicate serious violations” of workers’ rights at the G.M. facility, in Silao in the central state of Guanajuato, in connection with a recent vote on their collective-bargaining agreement, the Office of the United States Trade Representative said.The vote was stopped last month amid accusations that the union at the facility had tampered with it, according to news reports. Mexico’s Labor Ministry said on Tuesday that it had found “serious irregularities” in the vote and ordered that it be held again within 30 days.The updated North American trade agreement required Mexico to revamp its labor system, and the country overhauled its labor laws in 2019. Sham collective-bargaining agreements known as protection contracts, which are reached with employer-dominated unions, are widespread in the country. Now unions are holding votes to affirm the existing agreements.G.M. said it would cooperate with Mexico’s Labor Ministry and the U.S. government.Henry Romero/ReutersIn a statement, Katherine Tai, the U.S. trade representative, said the announcement on Wednesday “shows the Biden-Harris administration’s serious commitment to workers and a worker-centered trade policy.”“Using U.S.M.C.A. to help protect freedom of association and collective-bargaining rights in Mexico helps workers both at home and in Mexico, by stopping a race to the bottom,” she said, using the initials for the trade deal. “It also supports Mexico’s efforts to implement its recent labor law reforms.”In a statement, General Motors said that it believed it had no role in the alleged labor violations and that it had asked a third-party firm to review the matter. The company, which makes Chevrolet Silverado, Chevrolet Cheyenne and GMC Sierra pickup trucks at the Silao facility, said it would cooperate with Mexico’s Labor Ministry and the U.S. government.“General Motors respects and supports the rights of our employees to make a personal choice about union representation and any collective bargaining on their behalf,” the statement said. “G.M. condemns violations of labor rights and actions to restrict collective bargaining.”In announcing its request for a review by Mexico, the Biden administration avoided striking an adversarial tone with the Mexican government.Ms. Tai praised the government “for stepping in to suspend the vote when it became aware of voting irregularities,” adding, “Today’s action will complement Mexico’s efforts to ensure that these workers can fully exercise their collective-bargaining rights.”On Monday, the A.F.L.-C.I.O. and other groups filed a complaint under the rapid response mechanism in which they alleged labor violations at the Tridonex auto parts plants in the Mexican city of Matamoros, across the border from Brownsville, Texas.The Biden administration will review that complaint, an official in the trade representative’s office said. It could then ask Mexico to conduct a review of that matter akin to the one it is seeking of the G.M. facility.Oscar Lopez More

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    Complaint Accuses Mexican Factories of Labor Abuses, Testing New Trade Pact

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    The A.F.L.-C.I.O. and other groups are seeking to make use of a new enforcement mechanism in the updated North American trade deal.WASHINGTON — The A.F.L.-C.I.O. and other groups plan on Monday to file a complaint with the Biden administration over claims of labor violations at a group of auto parts factories in Mexico, a move that will pose an early test of the new North American trade deal and its labor protections. More