Return-to-Office Deadline After Labor Day Sets Up Showdowns

A return-to-office showdown is coming in September.

Companies such as Apple Inc. and Peloton Interactive Inc. have told corporate and office-based workers in the US to come back next month, and whether they do will say a lot about the ever-shifting balance of power between bosses and their underlings.

If the latest calls for “RTO” sound familiar, they are: Last summer, many companies targeted Labor Day in the US and Canada as the inflection point for remote workers to return to their cubicles. The Delta variant of Covid-19 upended those plans, prompting leaders to look to early 2022, but the ...