When the LGBTQ+ dating app Grindr told its staff last year that the days of fully remote work were over, more than 80 employees — nearly half off the company — said they wouldn’t report to the company’s West Hollywood headquarters or other newly established offices around the country. As a result, they were let go.

Now, federal labor regulators say the company’s back-to-office order was an unlawful ploy to retaliate against the workers’ union organizing efforts.

In a recent complaint, the National Labor Relations Board’s regional office in Los Angeles accused Grindr of interfering with employees’ right to organize and refusing to recognize the union workers had elected to join, calling the company’s actions “serious and substantial unfair labor practice conduct.”

About the 120 of the company’s roughly 180 employees were poised to form a union bargaining unit represented by Communications Workers of America, according the complaint. All 80 of the terminated employees were part of that group.

The popular app, which uses a location-based model that allows users to browse potential dates in their area, has gone through several ownership changes in recent years, but has continued to post solid profits from a dedicated user base in the tens of millions.

“We hope this NLRB filing sends a clear message to Grindr that, with a union, we are committed to negotiating fair working conditions in good faith,” the union, Grindr United-CWA, said in a statement Monday.

Grindr called the allegations “meritless,” arguing it had alerted employees it would do away with its remote work culture before they went public with their union drive.

“Grindr team members work from one of our offices just two days per week under our hybrid work model, and our decision to transition from fully remote to hybrid work in 2023 predated the union election petition. It was only after it was known that the transition back to in-office work was underway that some employees began signing union cards,” Grindr spokesperson Emily Wright said in statement. “Our focus continues to be on ensuring Grindr remains an exceptional place for our team to work, and an invaluable resource for the global LGBTQ+ community.”

The complaint is the NLRB’s first step in litigating the case after investigating an unfair labor practice claim submitted by employees and finding merit to the allegations. If a settlement with Grindr is not reached, the case will be reviewed by an administrative law judge, who could order the company to take steps to address the issues in the complaint.

In interviews, two former employees said employees began the union effort in late 2022. They pointed to employees who they said had been laid off without clear reasons and unsettling remarks by their then-incoming chief executive George Arison in support of conservative figures who had made bigoted remarks about transgender people.

Workers went public with their campaign to join CWA in July 2023, and two weeks later the company delivered its return-to-office policy in an all-hands meeting conducted on a Zoom video call on Aug. 3, according to the NLRB complaint. Under the new rules, workers who had been living elsewhere were required to move to either the Los Angeles area, Chicago or San Francisco in order to be close to the Grindr office where their job was based. The company offered up to $15,000 to cover relocation expenses, or six months of severance pay for those who chose not to move.

One of the former employees, who asked not to be identified for fear of reprisals as he continues to search for a new job, said that although his contract designated him as having a remote assignment, he was nonetheless included in the back-to-office mandate.

The employee, who was a member of Grindr’s customer experience team, said the company was slow to provide information about the terms of the back-to-office order and that he was forced to decide in less than a day whether to agree to move. He and many others ultimately signed a severance agreement because they were unable to decide so quickly whether to uproot their lives, he said.

The second former employee, Leo Feldman, said he was not given an opportunity to commit to the hybrid work plan and alleges his involvement with the union was behind the decision to fire him from his job as product manager.

The company’s actions seemed intended to disrupt the union drive, he said, noting that some engineers living near the West Hollywood office, for example, were told they had to move to Chicago.

Despite the turmoil, Grindr appears to have satisfied investors with strong growth even as the broader dating app industry has slowed.

As one of three publicly traded dating app companies, Grindr dominates the dating app market along with Bumble and Match Group, which owns Tinder and Hinge. Bumble has seen its stock fall 46% so far this year after missing revenue estimates, but Grindr shares have risen nearly 70% this year, closing at $15.10 on Monday.

The company recently reported $89 million in revenue in the third quarter, up 27% from the same period last year. Net income during the same period grew to $25 million, compared to a loss of $437,000 a year ago. Grindr also saw a 15% year-over-year increase in the number of average paying users, reaching 1.1 million.

“Our product work starts with our users, their needs, their behaviors and their preferences,” Arison said in a recent earnings call. “We are setting Grindr up for another great year of growth in 2025.”

The company, however, continues to face criticism about its privacy practices: earlier this year, it was sued by hundreds of users in the United Kingdom for allegedly sharing personal information — including HIV status and test dates, ethnicity and sexual orientation — with advertising companies without users’ consent. Grindr has denied the claims.

Nick Jones, an equity research analyst at Citizens JMP, said Grindr is outpacing investor expectations and is not alone in requiring employees to return to in-person work.

“A lot of companies believe they can keep their employees more focused if they’re in office,” Jones said. “The market is indicating that this is not a problem for the company,” he added of the NLRB complaint.

Grindr Chief Product Officer AJ Balance said the app has set itself apart from others in the crowded online dating market and is working on new features.

Grindr’s unique user interface known as the grid allows for quick and abundant connections and avoids the swiping model that some users have grown tired of, he said.

“This was built by the community, for the community, which is part of why it really meets the needs of its users in a unique way and why it’s been differentiated as a product over time,” Balance said.

The price of a bitcoin soared to a record high of more than $87,000 on Monday, continuing its surge in value since Donald Trump’s decisive victory in the presidential election spurred excitement about the digital currency.

Unlike President Biden, whose administration has sought to rein in cryptocurrencies, Trump has done an about-face from earlier skepticism to embrace them, having even promoted a crypto-based business in September, World Liberty Financial. There are reports that Trump’s sons will run it, but the company’s website says otherwise. The president-elect vowed on the campaign trail to put the country at the center of the digital-asset industry and to oversee the accumulation of a bitcoin stockpile.

Crypto backers who spent more than $100 million promoting crypto-friendly political candidates are now celebrating the promise of a pro-crypto White House.

Bitcoin was trading at about $87,740, up 9% for the day, around 1:30 p.m. Pacific time Monday and has risen 98% this year, in part thanks to demand for U.S. exchange-traded funds and interest rate cuts by the Federal Reserve. Giddy crypto investors have added to the run with bets that the cost of the world’s largest cryptocurrency will reach $100,000 by the end of the year. In London on Monday, there were $780 million worth of investments riding on the price hitting the milestone by Dec. 27, Bloomberg reported.

Trump’s win, along with the prospect of pro-crypto lawmakers in Congress, has boosted smaller digital currencies as well. Dogecoin, a currency promoted by one of Trump’s most vocal and deep-pocketed supporters, Elon Musk, has risen nearly 63% in the last five days. Another currency, Litecoin, has climbed 10% in the same period.

“With the dust from Trump’s victory still settling down, it was only a matter of time before a run-up of some sort occurred given the perception of Trump being pro-crypto, and that’s what we’re seeing now,” Le Shi, managing director of market-making firm Auros, told Bloomberg.

Trump’s broader agenda of cutting taxes and regulations and bolstering domestic economic growth also triggered a buying spree across stocks, with the Standard & Poor’s 500 index hitting a record last week. The rise in bitcoin, meanwhile, exceeds the returns from investments including stocks and gold.

Crypto-related companies also got a boost from Trump’s win. Shares of Microstrategy, a software maker that buys cryptocurrency as part of its financial strategy, and U.S. crypto exchange Coinbase were each up more than 22% on Monday and have been rising throughout Trump’s candidacy. Crypto-miners MARA Holdings and Riot Platforms saw shares climb Monday by 30% and 18%, respectively.

Under Biden, Securities & Exchange Commission Chair Gary Gensler characterized the cryptocurrency industry as rife with fraud and misconduct. Trump was initially skeptical about digital assets as well, but changed his tune on the campaign trail and earned the support of crypto investors.

Trump will almost certainly replace Gensler and has promised to soften federal oversight of cryptocurrency. Republicans also will control the Senate under Trump and are on the brink of getting the majority in the House, potentially clearing the way for the passage of new pro-crypto bills.

Bloomberg contributed to this report.

The South Bay is in for a large-scale transformation near the Port of Los Angeles as Phillips 66 shuts down its sprawling refineries and makes way for developers to reimagine the prime real estate.

Potential replacements for the century-old refinery complex covering 650 acres include housing and last-mile distribution centers for e-commerce merchants, both of which are in high demand. There may be shops, restaurants, and sports and entertainment venues.

“It’s a tremendous opportunity,” real estate analyst Jesse Gundersheim said. “Where else are you going to find hundreds of acres of developable land in L.A or coastal California?”

Oil giant Phillips 66 announced last month that late next year it will close the twin refineries in Carson and Wilmington that produce about 8% of the state’s gasoline. About 900 workers currently operate the refinery, which also produces diesel and jet fuel.

The refinery’s massive fuel storage tanks, distillation towers and sprawling pipeline have been a long-standing source of community concern. In recent years, complaints of acrid odors, fiery accidents, soot and harmful emissions have gained new resonance as public officials become more sensitive to accusations of environmental damage.

“Phillips 66 in L.A. is an old refinery. It’s had a lot of problems with flaring and fires in recent years and high levels of pollution,” Julia May, senior scientist for Communities for a Better Environment told The Times. “It may have just been out-competed by the rest of the refineries.”

Asked if the site might be more valuable to Phillips 66 as developed real estate than as a refinery, company spokesman Al Ortiz said in an email, “We feel this is the best option for the future of our Los Angeles facilities.”

Ortiz declined to comment further, saying Phillips 66 is in the preliminary stages of the project and hasn’t set a timeline on how long it might take to redevelop the land.

The oil company did say last month that it has has engaged real estate companies Catellus Development Corp. and Deca Cos. to evaluate potential future uses for the site. Both have taken on industrial land makeovers in the past.

Catellus redeveloped the 200-acre former Pacific Refinery Co. near San Francisco into a residential subdivision called Victoria by the Bay in 2003, a process that involved the removal of contaminants, real estate data provider CoStar said.

Deca has transformed outdated sites to accommodate new technologies. Its 800 Cesar Chavez project on San Francisco’s waterfront converted an aging warehouse into a large electronic vehicle charging and maintenance facility. It opened in 2018.

Deca didn’t respond to a request for comment about potential uses of the Phillips 66 site and Catullus referred inquiries to Phillips 66.

“Right now, we are focused on running the facilities and collaborating with Catellus and Deca to get the necessary permits to redevelop the site,” said,” Ortiz said.

There is enough land for several uses, said Gundersheim, CoStar’s senior director of market analytics and a specialist in evaluating industrial real estate.

The Carson site may lend itself best to warehouses, which are always in demand around the nearby Port of Los Angeles, the busiest container port in the Western Hemisphere, Gundersheim said. The facilities may be used by importers collecting goods from China before distributing them across the West Coast or by e-commerce companies such as Amazon to store and quickly distribute goods to customers in the South Bay.

The Wilmington refinery site, which is connected to Carson’s plant by a pipeline, may lend itself to housing. It is bordered by golf courses, Los Angeles Harbor College, federally owned land and residential neighborhoods.

There is a model for such redevelopment not far away, Gundersheim said.

Huntington Beach, which was once a booming oil industry center, has approved construction of 250 residential units alongside a hotel and retail space on the site of a former oil pumping and storage facility on Pacific Coast Highway. It will include single-family homes and apartments intended to be affordable.

Developer Shopoff Realty Investments bought the land in 2016, removed oil tanks and cleaned up the land known as the Magnolia Tank Farm.

The vastly larger Phillips 66 refinery sites may also be turned into a mix of uses that could include golf courses, athletic facilities, shopping centers and entertainment venues blended into new communities with houses and apartments, Gundersheim said.

“This kind of opportunity hasn’t been around for some time,” he said.

Phillips 66, which has operated the refineries since its 2012 spin off from ConocoPhillips, said it would replace their output with sources “inside and outside its refining network” and with renewable diesel and sustainable aviation fuels from its San Francisco Bay Area refinery.