Thread regarding Nike Inc. layoffs

@geai, tell that to the families of millions of people who died around the globe, id--t. If it is common cold, then you have no worries when you get it so go back to campus, unmasked, and resume your life as though nothing is happening. Do not get vaccinated either, mo--n.

It’s a common cold get over it you id--t

Nike leadership thinking we should go to campus and work is insane. There have been 2 people in the US that have died with Omicron so far and if even 1 person dies from anything ever that’s one too many. We need to insist that all roads are shut down, no one leaves their homes and everyone must wear a mask at all times. It’s the only way we’ll be able to survive this deadly DEADLY pandemic. AND NO MORE travel ever again, it’s way too dangerous, especially for the designers who would go to Europe or Japan for “inspiration” well never again or you will die!!

I do not want to go back to campus, I’m afraid I will get this cold that’s going around and I’m afraid I will get a runny nose which is gross and maybe get a sore throat. I refuse to go into an office and work if it means there will be germs there. My immune system stopped working from drinking too many soy latte’s and I am not going to risk getting sick for my job. Plus I need to dust off my participation trophies and prepare for a life of never have physical contact with another human being ever.

It’s a virus with an over 99.9% survival rate, from some of the comments you’d think Nike was sending you off to war somewhere. I think there should be flexibility with remote working but also not a big deal to go into work.

@ibs, worry about your own company and your company’s policies. Until you, yourself, work at Nike and understand what that means or unless your spouse can die from the slightest of infection then you can express your opinion. There is nothing privileged about the post to which you referred, as----e.

@xea: Too much drama and privilege oozing from your post. You and others are acting like it’s some kind of wildly irresponsible and unheard of notion that you’ll have to return to the office in 2022.

Meanwhile hundreds of thousands of your neighbors and fellow citizens in Oregon have been waking up everyday for part or all of the pandemic and commuting to their office jobs. In the vast majority of cases, safely. I work in accounting for a large trucking company (my wife works at Nike) and as an “essential” company we never went remote. We have a large number of employees spread across three buildings and by the nature of the work we are often in close contact with meetings and whatnot.

Nobody in our office has died of Covid over the last 2 years. We had about a half-dozen employees contract Covid from social gatherings outside work and they stayed at home for the duration of their quarantine. Then they returned to the office where we’re all vaccinated and we wear masks. None of it has been a big deal. Certainly not the apocalypse some posters here seem to think.

Covid isn’t going away anytime soon. So it needs to be managed with as minimal disruption as possible to business operations. This can be done. My company has proven it can be done. So have thousands of other companies in the PDX area. People barricading themselves in their homes isn’t economically sustainable in the long-term. It’s already done enough damage as it is. Even more important, with proper risk mitigation it isn’t necessary.

Both me and my wife feel like a certain number of Nike employees are sorta divorced from the real world where people get up and safely go to work in an office everyday. Y’all are some of the few remaining holdouts in Oregon when it comes to your very extended hiatus from the office. I get it…working from home has some advantages. It also has some very real disadvantages.

I get the feeling that even if Nike pushed your return out another six months, at the end of that period you’d have yet another set of reasons for why it’s inconceivable that your employer wants you back in the office. At some point you’re going back to the office. No time like the present to join the rest of us in the real world.

I don't see how the 2012 tax agreement has any relevance to whether Nike employees are in the office or not. That agreement stated that Nike's corporate taxes would continue to be calculated by the singles sales factor method for the next 30 years as long as Nike agreed to invest $150 million in a local capital project and hire an additional 500 people by the end of 2017. Nike exceeded both the capital project and hiring goals already. The investments into new WHQ buildings are somewhere close to $1 billion and Nike has hired thousands of local employees in Oregon since 2012.

I have no doubt that the State of Oregon is losing out on some income tax revenue now that they would have had without Covid. I'm sure there are at least a couple hundred employees that live in Washington and that some teams in Nike have hire permanently remote workers. However, despite that, Nike still employs more Oregonians and pays more in corporate tax in Oregon than they did in 2012. And I'm still not clear what legal levers the State of Oregon would have to make Nike hire locally or enforce people coming into the office. Just the opposite, considering the Governor's previous actions and the indoor mask mandate, you'd think the State would want people to stay home.

Bottom line, I don't think the tax revenue thing is real.

A news article about the tax agreement

https://www.oregonlive.com/politics/2012/12/kitzhaber_signs_30-year_tax_de.html

The actual agreement

http://media.oregonlive.com/politics_impact/other/0601_001.pdf

Clearly, many (I cannot say most though could be) people are not ready and feel uneasy about going back to the office in January. We also know that the survey was not a good measure for employees' true voice because we do not truest that it is anonymous (it is not), fear of retaliation, etc. I do not expect that employees will stage some type of organized walkout or strike like others said. So, the question is what do we do? Sign a petition that opposes the proposed return? Do nothing and just comply? Leave it to each individual to figure out his/her own situation (until we all win seems like empty words now)? If this was a D&I matter it would have been handled differently, I am sure. But it only a matter of health or one might say "life and death" only Nike laughable leadership are comfortable gambling with our lives. That tells me all I need to know about Nike. I am out. I choose life. I choose my family's health. I respect my coworkers enough not to get them sick and I value their lives. Nike is in trouble

If the tax point is real, why not just requiring to be based in OR and paying income tax here? Don’t have to be in an office for that ...

I love how I have received FOUR different emails now. 2 from HR-ish roles and 2 from Tech leadership, POUNDING on the message of SEE YOU IN JANUARY ON CAMPUS WHERE WE WILL BE BETTER TOGETHER.

Wow. This place is ridiculous.

This place is the worst!

All the talk about maintaining culture and collaboration, while it may have a slight bit of truth to it, is certainly not the primary motivation behind the decision. The egos at the top are too big to admit they were wrong. The spend on the new construction has to be justified and the terms of the 2013 tax break agreement with Oregon for promising X number of Oregon income tax paying employees has to be kept. Nike would prefer to avoid having too many remote employees moving out of Oregon- that could be awkward. So they make it impractical to do so with mandatory physical presence in the office.

They will stay the course until it has potential to impact the bottom line. It is unfortunate that people will die because of this. It's all acceptable as long as analyst estimates are beat. Is it not amazing how owning a few million in equity can replace a conscience? Make NKE go brrrrr.

nike poured millions into those new buildings that look like something out of a dystopian landscape with hints of cthulh, oh wait that sums up nike perfectly, to have you not return to the office. otherwise they paid close to $100 million for empty buildings that are also absolutely horrendous for office work

Get ready for the wave kids - Nike won’t back down from Jan-10!!

They need to push it back. This is crazy.

At this point, I do not care what Nike’s stance is. I am not going back to virus spreading stupid campus even though I am vaccinated. If Nike does not care about its employees’ life then Nike can go to he-l. What’s going to happen when employees start dying?

Spoke with my Doctor. They're almost certain another shutdown is coming because how infectious it is. They were appalled by Nikes stance, especially in the middle of flu season.

Nike should push it back, but I have a feeling they wont. They are being stubborn for some reason and don’t want to admit it’s a bad move to go back in January. Cases are rising, sporting events are shutting town, colleges are going remote, etc. But let’s just have thousands of people go back on the same day!

That is responsible and true leadership; something of Nike is not known.