T-Mobile may acquire Mint Mobile, Amazon failed to unionize the Staten Island warehouse vote, and Parlor has reportedly laid off most of its employees.
All these technology related news are trending right now. Welcome to trending hashtags. Today is Friday the 13th of January and I am your host, Asha Pamma.
T-Mobile may acquire Mint Mobile, the budget wireless provider backed by US actor Ryan Reynolds. Bloomberg There are reports that both the companies are in talks but no final decision has been taken and Mint Mobile may choose to remain independent or sell to another party. Mint Mobile offers budget cell phone plans on the T-Mobile network for as little as $15 per month. The company’s plans are designed such that people don’t pay for more bandwidth than they actually need. It allows users to start with a three-month period and make adjustments thereafter. Representatives for T-Mobile declined to comment and representatives for Mint Mobile did not immediately respond to a request.
Amazon has failed to persuade Cornell Overstreet, regional director of the National Labor Relations Board, to overturn the JFK8 workers’ vote in favor of unionization. a report from Engadget Notes that the JFK8 facility in Staten Island was the first unionized Amazon warehouse after workers voted 2,350 to 1,912 in favor of joining a union last year. Amazon said at the time that it was “disappointed” by the result and challenged the vote. The company alleged “undue and undue influence” from the National Labor Relations Board. Amazon also accused union organizers of threatening employees to vote in favor of unionization. However, Thursday’s reports suggest that Amazon was unable to produce sufficient evidence of improper conduct to overturn the election results. The Overstreet Board agreed with the hearing officer who recommended in September that JFK8’s union vote should be upheld.
The owner of Parler, a “free speech” social network, has laid off most of its employees and executives in recent weeks. Reports from The Verge and Ars Technica suggest that the layoffs began in late November. About 75 percent of the workforce was let go, resulting in only 20 employees leaving to work in both the parlor and the parent company’s cloud services venture. Based on the timeline, the layoffs began about two weeks after Parlement Technologies closed a deal to sell Parler to Ye, formerly known as Kanye West. Ye and Parlement announced the acquisition deal on 17 October, with Ye saying he would defend “conservative opinions” on the site. However, the Parlement announced the termination of the deal in mid-November following Yeh’s anti-Semitic comments.
Microsoft employees in the US will get unlimited time off. The announcement was made in an email to employees. The company is calling its unlimited time off “discretionary time off” and it will apply to all salaried employees within the US. The changes will take effect Monday and mean new Microsoft employees also don’t have to wait to accrue vacation time. Microsoft will offer 10 corporate holidays, leave of absence, leave for sick and mental health, as well as time off for jury duty.
All these technology related news are trending right now. Hashtag Trending is a part of the ITWC Podcast Network. Add us to your Alexa Flash Briefing or your Google Home Daily Briefing. Be sure to sign up for our Daily IT Wire Newsletter to get important news straight to your inbox every day. Plus, check out the next episode of Hashtag Tendence, our weekly hashtag trending episode in French, which drops every Thursday morning. If you have any suggestion or tip, drop us a line in the comments or via email. Thanks for listening, I’m Aashi Pamma.
