Around 80 of its 178 employees are believed to have resigned after a mandate that employees work in person at assigned “hub offices” two days a week or be fired was announced last month, according to the Communications Workers of America (CWA) labour union.

Staff reportedly had two weeks to choose between relocating to their respective team’s “hub city” – either New York, Chicago, Los Angeles, San Francisco or Washington D.C. – for in-person work, or leaving the company entirely with a severance package.

The change was announced after a majority of the LGBTQIA+ dating app’s workers announced their intention to unionise, the Los Angeles Times reported.

READ MORE: Grindr: 25% of users are on the app to network, company says

CWA branded Grindr’s updated policy as an attempt “to silence workers from speaking out about their working conditions”.

“It is unimaginably disappointing”

Erick Cortez, an employee of the company and member of Grindr United-CWA, said: “It is unimaginably disappointing that dozens of our colleagues have had to leave their jobs because Grindr management did not want to sit down with workers and respect our right to organise.”

The CWA last week filed a labour complaint against Grindr, the second in about a month.

READ MORE: Grindr’s new CEO faces backlash from users over his past conservative tweets

Grindr has adamantly denied that its return-to-office policy was not influenced by some of its staff choosing to unionise and said the claims filed by the CWA “have no merit”.

A spokesperson added that the company is “looking forward to returning to the office in a hybrid model in October and further improving productivity and collaboration for our entire team.”