Apple Store in Glasgow Makes History as First UK Store to Unionize

[maxoakland]

How much is enough? Should a sales grunt make a million a year?

How much is enough for a CEO? Should there be a maximum amount CEOs can be paid?

 

[Xiaojohn]

damn them for thinking of protecting the jobs and income which feeds them and their family, how utterly terrible. Elon might struggle to sell them online if warehouse staff are also in the same union and go out on strike to prevent their colleagues losing their jobs unfairly.

Why Apple need to take up UK government job?

For online, DELL from UK show very good example. No issue for warehouse, Apple don’t have thousands products like DELL.

If robot cannot solve the problem, please hire those chinese Hong Kong in UK for the warehouse, they are cheap labor, hardworking, efficient, less complaint.

They have family to feed too.

 

[Xiaojohn]

If the retail worker is this easily replaceable, then greedy corporate should already done so. You think these corporate *******s from top won’t do this if it is possible?

Now try to get ride of all Apple Store employees and replace with robots, and how will it turn out.

I cannot understand why people wants to defend a corporation that make billions and billions of dollars, and such their worker dry.

No physical store require.

 

[Xiaojohn]

I think it's the GMB in this case.

Thanks for sharing.

After i view their website, i think Apple shouldn’t in this list.

 

[bwillwall]

I have family members working @Apple Store. It's not fun, you can't imagine the amount of pressure build up especially hitting certain number (sales , worked hours) with no respect on personal life. Someone said in the above comments , Apple culture is toxic . YES it is ..
Of course, one might think "go find an other job" and that is condescending. You proved yourself at your job , invested years into becoming better and then someone slaps you in the face with "your store needs more hours, more of that , or this " . It has to be a balance work-life . In USA, you live to work , that is apple.

Thanks. I think that's what I've been missing, the stories from Apple retail workers to understand why. I just always assumed Apple would take good care of their employees being a brand that prides themselves so much in their virtues and their fancy stores. However, with this many unions popping up obviously something doesn't seem right.

 

[Xiaojohn]

I'm honestly shocked by the amount of anti-union sentiment here. To a certain extent I can understand it with USA citizens as employers there seem to be terrified of unions and the thought of employees having decent working conditions and actual employment rights and in the UK the populist right-wing press do a good job of making people anti-union. I am a Brit but used to work for the UK subsidiary of an American company (offshore oil services company) and they had to deal with my union. The US management were hopeless at any kind of negotiation and thought they could ride roughshod not only over UK employment law but also to refuse to pay into our pension scheme. Without a union they would quite possibly have succeeded.

Unions do far more than work for pay rises. They do valuable work with regard to employment rights and, very importantly, supporting employees if they have a dispute of any kind with their managers. A company like Apple will have lawyers ready to represent them in any dispute. If you are a union member then so will your union and it will all be covered by your union fee. My union will also provide free legal representation for compensation if I suffer an injury at work, have a deal for priority medical treatment for elective surgery. On a more trivial level, I get discounts on everything from home and car insurance to holidays and even certain Apple products by being a member of my union.

I'm not being anti-USA here (I genuinely love the country and the people) but your working conditions are positively Victorian and really need dragging into the 21st century.

This is not true.

Big America company will not do hanky panky things.

Do you notice why UK economic is going worst? Dyson Dell and other big company are all moving to Asia or other country.

Apple do not need a store there, but they still invest one there…and they use expensive designer and material….

Working in Apple retail is safe comfort and security. Unions are just politic and poison to the organisation. People like to take power and play around.

 

[Xiaojohn]

Thanks. I think that's what I've been missing, the stories from Apple retail workers to understand why. I just always assumed Apple would take good care of their employees being a brand that prides themselves so much in their virtues and their fancy stores. However, with this many unions popping up obviously something doesn't seem right.

Unions doing sales job and promotion too

 

[Xiaojohn]

Nobody can deny that UK local company is leaving…

I pray that UK citizen can wake up and stop self-center complaints.

 

[Haust]

Unions are bad for companies and customers. They are great for union admins and lazy employees. I’ll avoid any Apple Store that unionizes.

 

[whatgift]

I have family members working @Apple Store. It's not fun, you can't imagine the amount of pressure build up especially hitting certain number (sales , worked hours) with no respect on personal life. Someone said in the above comments , Apple culture is toxic . YES it is ..

I didn't have this experience at all (former employee) - we weren't given sales targets or anything like that, although employees who did sell better got to move up the ladder quicker (I didn't care about that myself). I don't understand the comment about hours - we worked the normal number of hours, got paid per hour, and could volunteer for extra time and projects outside of business hours. While the pay wasn't brilliant, it compared well with other retail work, and there were many other perks that came along with it. The biggest problem was not Apple, but customers, who made it so unpleasant to serve, that's why I ended up moving on.

 

[Unregistered 4U]

The people are who, like everything else in a free economy.

Ah, makes sense. Because the people have already said, for quite a few years now, retail jobs don’t provide a living wage.

 

[Unregistered 4U]

How to say "I have no idea about working in retail" wiithout saying "I have no idea about working in retail".

I know right? The first few days are watching the safety videos and training so it would at least take 4 days. Maybe.

 

[Unregistered 4U]

Thanks. I think that's what I've been missing, the stories from Apple retail workers to understand why. I just always assumed Apple would take good care of their employees being a brand that prides themselves so much in their virtues and their fancy stores. However, with this many unions popping up obviously something doesn't seem right.

Just remember, replace AppleStore with ANY other company with retail employees and it’s the same story. AND quite likely, worse, because the pay is very likely less.

 

[Unregistered 4U]

Do you notice why UK economic is going worst? Dyson Dell and other big company are all moving to Asia or other country.

Dyson is leaving the UK?!? To the googles!

 

[svish]

Looks like more stores will be unionizing in the future.

 

[DownUnderDan]

How much is enough? Should a sales grunt make a million a year?

You'll have to exaggerate further, what you listed is still a third of what Tim's base pay is and then there is the little matter of his $83 million stock award and $12 million bonus on top he makes. So yeah one million is starting to sound more reasonable in that context. It is still 1/100th what the boss makes.

 

[The_Gream]

I didn't have this experience at all (former employee) - we weren't given sales targets or anything like that, although employees who did sell better got to move up the ladder quicker (I didn't care about that myself). I don't understand the comment about hours - we worked the normal number of hours, got paid per hour, and could volunteer for extra time and projects outside of business hours. While the pay wasn't brilliant, it compared well with other retail work, and there were many other perks that came along with it. The biggest problem was not Apple, but customers, who made it so unpleasant to serve, that's why I ended up moving on.

I didn’t get paid great in retail (A non Apple company) something like 12.50 an hour after years of working. More pay would have been nice. Better training and expectations for employees/co-workers. Customers who didn’t scream and howler at you, who didn’t treat you like crap would have been nice. My biggest problems were customers and co-workers (most of them part-time and lacking a work ethic).

Someone else said retail workers don’t have skill, sorry to say a good retail employee has skills. Retail is a customer service job, so you have to develop the verbal skills and knowledge base to promote and sell your goods. You have to be able to multitask in a generally high stress/fast paced environment because people have become accustomed to getting things now. Retail skills may not be like neural surgery, which has better pay, but they are still skills.

 

[LeeW]

My local store. Well, there are two now quite close to each other in Glasgow. Unfortunately, their numbers are so small the union has no real advantage. Unions these days, certainly here in Scotland are more about themselves than the worker. All I ever hear from workers locally, even in the largest unions is that they end up worse off in many cases.

 

[fat jez]

My local store. Well, there are two now quite close to each other in Glasgow. Unfortunately, their numbers are so small the union has no real advantage. Unions these days, certainly here in Scotland are more about themselves than the worker. All I ever hear from workers locally, even in the largest unions is that they end up worse off in many cases.

Depends on whether other stores follow suit. That will give more clout if they do.

 

[LeeW]

Depends on whether other stores follow suit. That will give more clout if they do.

I have heard the ones in Braehead and Edinburgh are considering it, but also heard that they are not using the same unions. If true, just seems pretty pointless.

 

[Aoligei]

No physical store require.

I don’t know about you, I don’t like shopping online. I prefer physical store. I like to get things when I pay and not wait. I also don’t trust shipping.

And I am 35. I am sure millions of people like me who prefer shopping at physical stores

 

[ninethirty]

How much is enough? Should a sales grunt make a million a year?

Could this comment drip with disrespect any more?

I bet these people work twice as hard as I do, and I'm paid 20x what they are. Hard work is hard work. They deserve to make more than they're given, and a union will help them to accomplish that.

For the life of me I can't understand why anyone would oppose this.

 

[cocky jeremy]

Seriously - you'd shut down the store to "teach them a lesson"? This may come as a shock to you, but Unionising is a perfectly legal thing to do, and it's an option open to anyone. Apple may or may not like it, but who cares? I care more about the workers and that they have organised themselves to get themselves a better deal is no bad thing.

What is it you care about?

Sure as hell not their whiny, unskilled employees.

 

[gstevie]

Close it immediately.

The store is located on one of the busiest shopping streets in the UK, in the largest city in Scotland. Apple will not be closing that store over a union. Glasgow makes Apple quite a lot of money, considering it’s one of the only places in the UK that has 2 Apple stores. That one in the city centre and the other is in a shopping centre on the city outskirts. I think London is the only other city in the UK that has more than 1 store. Both are there for a reason.

 

[anthdci]

Why Apple need to take up UK government job?

For online, DELL from UK show very good example. No issue for warehouse, Apple don’t have thousands products like DELL.

If robot cannot solve the problem, please hire those chinese Hong Kong in UK for the warehouse, they are cheap labor, hardworking, efficient, less complaint.

They have family to feed too.

So you’re advocating for staff to lose their jobs to be replaced with robots or immigrants. This is exactly what a union would protect against so people don’t end up going hungry and losing their homes