Over 500 Amazon employees write open letter to AWS CEO Matt Garman protesting RTO mandate

Amazon employees continue to fight against the return-to-office (RTO) mandate the tech giant is trying to enforce from January 2025. This week, more than 500 employees sent a signed letter to the CEO of its Web Services unit, Matt Garman, urging him to rethink his earlier statements and stance on making employees work from the office five days a week instead of three.

“As employees of AWS and Amazon who work tirelessly every day to obsess over and innovate on behalf of our customers, we were appalled to hear the non-data-driven explanation you gave for Amazon imposing a 5-day in-office mandate at the AWS Global Meeting on October 17th,” the staff letter, obtained by Business Insider, stated. "By rigidly mandating a 5-day in-office culture and telling employees who cannot or will not contribute to the company's mission in this specific way that 'there are other companies around,' you are silencing critical perspectives and damaging our culture and our future in doing so."

This comes a month after Garman said in an all-hands meeting that the majority of workers he spoke with support their decision. He also said that employees who were not on board with Amazon's return-to-office policy could seek employment elsewhere.

The AWS chief alleged that the existing three-day hybrid work model has not been successful. "We didn't really achieve much; we weren't able to collaborate and learn from one another," since employees often come into the office on different days," he said.