We still haven’t quite hit agreement here. If apple could do better but isn’t shouldn’t the stores be unionizing for collective bargaining powers?
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Apple Store in Oklahoma City Becomes Second in U.S. to Unionize
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I can’t so I know how the negotiations would go either.
And I quoted an average cost of living as 60k. It’s a commonly used economic bar to see how people are doing in an area. It could very easily be argued that retail employees by the nature of their work are going to be paid below the average and therefore might not meet the average cost of living.
That doesn’t mean that they also shouldn’t be paid better. Measuring income vs. that bar is a metric for quality of life. If your income is half of the cost of living you aren’t doing as well as if your income is three quarters of the cost of living.
Isn’t everyone’s goal for making money to live a reasonably comfortable life if they aren’t there already? If not that do you just believe it’s raw greed and they are paid just fine? You are welcome to disagree with my thoughts there but what do you think their goal is if not to live a reasonably comfortable life?
Basically every US state except Montana is a Right to Work State. An at-will employment state allows for termination of employment for NO reason, but they cannot fire you for discriminatory reasons either. You cannot be fired for race, gender, national origin, disability, religion, genetic information, or age (if the person is at least 40 years old).
Would be nice is you actually knew something before you posted...... If they are indeed a right to work state, it means you cant be bullied into joining the mafia.... errr I mean the union. I LOVE the fact my state is right to work. So the mafia unions cant force me to join it. My company doesnt have a union thankfully but if they did, I wouldnt join it on principal.
Supply and demand is much more effective at improving 'working conditions'. If a company doesnt have good pay etc then dont take the jobs. There is a worker shortage in the country now. You can basically write your own ticket these days. This isnt the early 1900's. These people arent being forced to work 12-16 hour days. They are asking for exorborbatent pay for working retail sales. This isnt rocket science.
What are the unions doing? They are being greedy. THEY WOULDNT EXIST if it wasnt for all the dues paid in and the union management getting paid. Dont think for a second that they do the union work out of the kindness of their hearts.
If apples compensation package is so horrible, why are they ALWAYS fully staffed? If they sucked so bad, they would have a hard time hiring and they would have to make the compensation/benefits better to compete in what is now a employees employment market since so many people didnt go back to work after all the covid shutdowns.
Don’t you know much that costs in your city?
Multiply the price of a budget meal by 90, add a rental in a cheap neighborhood, add health insurance, and divide by 176 or so.
That’s the bare minimum you should pay a person if you expect a reasonable outcome. Otherwise, if you’re creating outcasts, why would you get a job well done?
That person wouldn’t even have enough budget for clothes or a phone. Do you think a person can live without clothes, utilities, or a phone?
How do people live in your mind?
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In Boston where rents start at $3000, a person would need to make at least $75k at the minimum, roughly $36 an hour.
Is that where a McDonalds worker or Apple associate should start?
To put the hourly wage in perspective, a recent grad nurse (BS degree) in Boston starts about there.
You got it wrong.
The question is, should a person who works 8 hours per day be homeless?
If a person who works 8 hours per day and is responsible is homeless, then your city/state/country is embarrassing.
If those companies can’t pay living wages, simply shut down the business or buy robots, and be ready to pay more taxes. Do not normalize dehumanization. Human rights are universal values, PER/EPS/ROI values are not.
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Correct. Everybody wants there to be a "slave-esque class" of workers that supports but somehow does not get to participate in "their" economy. Economies flourish when businesses realize their employees are someone else's customers and vice versa.
Oh ok. Somehow Apple is the leader of compensation packages. They are the best company to work on. Except, have you heard about resume “working for apple” effect? Same for google, Microsoft, IBM etc. Some parts of the world treat that kind of experience as a testament to your skill. It’s fairly common. Also, one can choose to work in Apple for a year or two while accumulating skills necessary for the next career move. In short, there are many reasons people choose to work for Apple, and pay Isn’t going to be the only reason.
Amazon has been replacing human for decades, yet, not quite there. I would not be surprised if Google is completely operated by AI and robots, including CEO. They are the one that I believe having the guts to pull that off.
If that's what it takes. You can't have a functional economy where you only have a professional class that can afford to participate in it. Eventually the market will decide for them anyway. We may hit the point where we can't staff a McDonald's in some places and pay less than $50 an hour. People can argue about the value of labor, skilled, vs. unskilled, etc. but the question comes down to "Do you want a McDonalds in your neighborhood or don't you?" And if you do, there is price to pay for it.
Interesting that you brought up nursing. In many places demand for nurses is so high they have reached a "pay whatever the ask" rate just to fill vacancies.
Understood. As far as I know, it appears that they are at the upper bound of where retail jobs are in the area. Comparatively speaking, Apple likely offers comparable or better benefits as well. Could be that this all comes down to “we want a say into how our managers act” in which case, it’s not really about pay or benefits at the core of it.
Yes, but, many people, understanding that they want to live a reasonably comfortable life, aren’t trying to have that life revolve primarily around a retail job. If they can get 60k for a retail job, then good on the union if they’re able to get that out of Apple. And, I’d be happy for them to do so. Heck, if they can get 200k a year for a retail job, THAT would be SWEET for them. It might not be likely, but I wouldn’t bemoan them getting it.
Very likely, these stores have had a history of bad management, the employees have done all they feel they are able to within the system to effect change and formed the union because:
1. They plan to be working at Apple for awhile as the pay and benefits are good and they’re not interested in working anywhere else, and
2. They don’t want to have to deal with bosses that are not focused on their personal well being.
They want to like going to work and doing what they do, and they can’t do that if the manager is making it a bad place to be. “Quit and go work somewhere else” isn’t really an option because they’d have to take a pay/benefits cut to go ANYWHERE else (and who knows, maybe that’s why the management was not listening to the employees. They’re thinking, “You’re already working the best job in the mall, do you know how many folks are asking for applications ALL the time? What more do you want?” And, those managers, I believe are what may cause unions to continue to spread within Apple.
They’ll only strike if Apple refuses to give them what they want
Good for this Apple store! I hope every worker in America has the opportunity to be part of a union or coop
A recently graduated nurse working in Boston starts at an amount barely able to afford an apartment in Boston?
Do you think that makes sense?
The McDonalds will go away or the employees will go away. Kiosks and robots will assume the roles of people where they are able to. Nearly every McDonalds and Burger King in my area have Kiosks. The person behind the counter will ask for the customer to use the Kiosk.
What's I find interesting is back when I was a kid I never looked at a fast food place as a full time gig for the rest of my life.
I know people that moved up though the chain in retail and now work in corporate, without a degree.
Apple, I could see starting out and moving up, but all it takes is upsetting one of the managers to make it near impossible to advance.
I don't know the answer but from what I see, fast food prices have significantly increased.
As a coffee fanatic, I have seen Dunks prices up around 35% in the past 18 months. That equates to less visits.
Nursing - Not new grads. Salaries have their caps based on location. Facilities are experimenting different staffing models; fewer employees and more contracted staffing. If you are willing to work with for no benefits, you can easily add 30 - 40% to you hourly wage.
If a median home cost is roughly $400k should a McDonalds worker be paid to afford such a mortgage, (~$2100/month), After payroll taxes are taken out that McDonalds worker would need to make at least $30 an hour. Is that sustainable for the franchise owner?
Supply and demand. There are only so many apartments in the city. The number of students and workers far exceed the number of dwellings available.
I guess if they want people to live and work there, companies will have to pay more
And people who already live there will have to find ways to get paid more, like unionizing
If the fanchise owner cannot afford to pay workers a wage which you can live on, the the franchise owner is at fault and either needs to close some stores, raise some prices, or take less profits. None of this is the fault of the worker, and it isn’t something they should bear the burden of.
Extra laughable when talking about the likes of McDonalds, or don’t you see the issue here?
I don’t see the issue. I don’t think a job like McDonald’s or even entry level Apple associate warrants $60k a year.
Having worked as an Apple associate I showed up, fulfilled my responsibilities and went home. As a part time associate, the pay was adequate for the role.
As an FDA compliance tech writer, working 10+ hours 6 days a week and with some level of liability, that role was also paid adequately, though the stress and time commit was horrible.
Unionizing won’t get them wages to live in town. They are competing against a workforce of medical and science degreed individuals.
Unless of course an Apple associate should be paid the same as much as nurses, doctors and scientists.
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When you (and I) were kids many of these jobs were seasonal and transitional. It was not uncommon for people from many different economic backgrounds to have "summer jobs" at fast-food or similar places. A high school kid could earn enough money to do useful things like buy a car or pay tuition at a state school. Now these jobs have become stratified and used to trap workers based on economics and education. There has become a stigma that paying a fast-food worker a living wage is somehow giving them something they don't deserve while white-collar workers sit in their cubicles all day, browsing social media and stuffing their 401Ks with a bare minimum of effort.
Fast food price increases outpaced labor costs (which remained static for years) by a significant factor. They became so egregious that even McDonalds had to reset their menu a few years ago because they were pricing themselves out of the market. This was purely profit maximizing and had very little correlation to rising costs.
One of the biggest triumphs of corporate America was successfully enlisting the public in the battle to defend their profits by pitting them against each other and vehemently insisting that the more physical the labor is the least worthy it is of compensation. We use words like "menial" and "unskilled' to denigrate the very resource that makes possible our society when we really should be saying "undervalued"
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Yes, that is what happens in the majority of other countries. It probably isn’t the staffs fault the store is closing so why shouldn’t they get something to tide them over until they can find alternative work.