I think you need a new job, dear. Ever thought of cleaning?
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Glasgow Apple Store Employees to Become First UK Branch to Unionize
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What about the right for an employer to run his/her own business how they see fit? What about that? Why is it only about the employee? Is anyone forcing them to work at a place they deem unsuitable? Is anyone forcing them to earn a wage they deem less than satisfactory? No? Then where is the crime, exactly? Because I don't see one. All I see is socialist overlords, crushing free enterprise and sticking their eyes, ears and noses into affairs that, if they had any sense, they should stay out of.
Average Joe also loves to mind other's people business. "I can't earn more than $xx/hour for my ****** job, so no one should earn it. And I will deny their legal rights to unionize or whatever legal way they choose to fight for their rights."
Combination of envy, greed, stupidity and bootlicking.
But it's just quicker and cheaper to move to a new job which has better pay and benefits.
The main reason they're unionising is that's probably not easy to find in Glasgow.
Citation - Me. Have worked for Apple, actually within the store in question as well as another. I've also worked for Samsung, as well as the largest independent Mac repair company in Scotland. I know what the going rate is in a like for like position. The company I work for now is a starting rate of £12 per hour for inexperienced repair staff, and we don't turnover almost $1 billion per day.
The roles should be listed as having a starting salary, even if that is kept "secret" within the company. No "Genius" with multiple years experience should be paid less than someone who has just started the Genius role, even if they have progressed from elsewhere in the store.
In my experience, new start Geniuses were all offered the same salary. Some said no to the initial offer and instantly received 20% more than those who accepted the first offer. That is not based on merit, and is based purely on what they can get away with.
On your second point, of course companies are free to try that, but you also need to keep your existing staff base happy, especially when the bulk of them are long term. Do you try and keep a couple of new specialists happy and piss off everyone else, or do you treat everyone fairly, increase their pay in line with everything else and avoid your store becoming the first in the UK to unionise and have the management team dragged over the coals for bringing the company into disrepute?
I think you know very well, you can no longer market yourself inside your own company. My point was that if a workplace, be it Apple or Starbucks, unionize then the outstanding performers are marginalized and the lowest common denominator employees are carried. There is absolutely no incentive to excel because you will make exactly the same rate as under-performers with the same seniority.
Take a Starbucks, barista A has a stellar attitude and is constantly up selling while barista B just does the minimum to keep a job. In a normal store barista A has the ability to use his/her performance as leverage with management for a raise. In a union shop, barista A has no ability to benefit from his or her personal performance and in fact has zero incentive to excel outside of personal pride.
As far as making them management.... some people are great workers but terrible managers. Some people might not want the responsibility of management, they just want to come to work, do their job well and be rewarded for THEIR hard work.
So it is ok for you to say "this is a union shop, don't like it, go find work elsewhere" but it was not ok for myself and others in this thread to say "this is a non-union shop, if you don't like the conditions here find work elsewhere"?
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Sorry but your personal experience is anekdotal. Please back up your assertion that Apple specifically is low balling wages for like positions, across your region or country.
Sorry again but I disagree. As I stated before if Genius A started with Apple 3 years ago and had little experience and Apple had to incur the cost of training them to the point they are today and Genius B gets hired today but has equal or greater experience than Genius A they deserve the same or greater pay. How is that not common sense? Not all employees are equal.
Whose fault is that? Applying for a job is all about promoting yourself and the benefits you will bring to the company. Some are better at it than others. If Apple needs 10 Geniuses and 5 accept the offered $X/hour but no one else does then Apple is forced to increase their offer in order to fill the remaining positions, they are not required to go back and give the first 5 hires immediate raises.
I have NEVER, not once in my entire professional career discussed my salary or benefits with a coworker nor have I ever asked a coworker what they make. It just isn't done.
If employers got to run businesses how they see fit we'd go back to the days of no overtime pay, no safety provisions, and the return of child labor. Thankfully we have laws protecting employees including the right to unionize.
Someone working retail is unlikely to be able to get a different job with much better pay and benefits. The power of restaurant and retail workers doesn't reside with the individual because the company will just find some other poor sap to take the position for low pay. The power resides in the collective because while the business can probably replace one or two workers, they'll likely have a hard time replacing everybody.
Tell me, are the star performers at Apple and Starbucks recognized with meaningfully hire pay under the current non-unionized regime or do they get the same pay as everyone else with similar position and seniority?
Absolutely no incentive?? I would think positioning yourself for a promotion through hard work is incentive, no? Apple isn't going to promote the slackers to the more lucrative management positions.
Cite sources showing that high performing baristas are paid more than their average performing peers under the non-unionized regime.
Your statement here makes no difference whether a business is unionized or not. It applies equally to both scenarios.
If a business has not chosen to unionize the employees are certainly free to tell the minority of folks wanting a union exactly that. What's good for the goose is good for the gander after all. What's getting folks like you riled up though is that many places are choosing to unionize.
I don’t get the arguments here about “the cleaner isn’t worth a decent salary”. Why not? Shouldn’t everyone who works get at least a basic worry free, benefit free existence in a rich country? I can’t imagine the rich would even notice the tiny reduction in their wealth it would cost.
I don't know, all I can say is that if you are a star performer then you certainly have the ability to market yourself that way to management with numbers to back it up. What management does with that is up to management and the company but as many here have stated it is certainly in any company's best interest to keep star performers. If they don't act then employees should move on to a company that appreciates their skills. I would rather be recognized as a performer by my company versus just one of the head of cattle they are forced to deal with.
Again, some are not meant for management. Apple, or any other retailer, should want star retail employees! Under a union you are not recognized for performance.
No I will not. What I said was that high performing baristas can use their performance as leverage with management, it is up to them to do so. Management does not have to reward them but it would certainly be in their best interest to do so or that employee will probably move on.
Are you willing to cite examples of where a union benefits individual performers over those that just show up and do the bare minimum? No, you can't, because unions don't recognize star performers, they recognize seniority and those that tow the union political line.
Example: Who gets first shot at preferred shifts, the senior guy or the new guy that out performs everyone else? Who gets first shot at overtime hours, the senior guy or the new guy that out performs everyone else?
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You presume too much.
“Combination of envy, greed, stupidity and bootlicking.”
That’s hilarious man, but I’m afraid not an ounce of any of those are needed when stating different numbers, not when it comes to pay, not when it comes to me, and not a bit of it in my comment either, again, you presume too much. Maybe that’s how others around you behave, but you don’t know me and considering you stooped down to insults you can definitely mind YOUR own business right there. I couldn’t care less that they are making more than me, plenty of people are, I just gave an example, try not to read encyclopaedia’s of negative behaviour into everything you read.
Also never said anything about unions either now did I. I’m in one and have been for many years by the way and a union MIGHT be of benefit to them under certain situations, though unions are not always on an employees side, at least not the big ones. But I’m happy if they do get a union and get a better work situation out of it, never said otherwise. But again, for what some of them do they have nothing to complain about in regards to the pay, it’s not like the average pay for these kinds of jobs is £30 an hour in the UK. You want to talk about low pay for the work done? Ok then, my partner is a full time care assistant in a care home with lots of qualifications in the work, but gets less money per hour than I do, now THAT is unfair pay, not this. The Apple employees in the US however, they probably need a lot more help than the average worker in the UK does or the majority of countries considering how badly people are treated there for pay, time off and other considerations unique to North America.
And this is exactly the case today, hence why so many places are starting to unionize. The employees are working hard and not seeing a sufficient return for their work. Any company that gets unionized deserves it.
Again, no difference union or not.
I don't see a lot of these folks getting recognition when not unionized. Employees wouldn't be unionizing if they were happy with their company.
Such a thing would vary by union. The union members can vote on how they would like things to be. And if a union doesn't want to recognize star performers the company is free to, by offering promotions to the best performers to positions outside of the union. And they don't even need to be management positions, before you beat that dead horse again.
Interesting. According to some folks on MR this store is apparently staffed by a bunch of good-for-nothings seeking a union to hold the few star performers back while simultaneously benefitting from the star performers' extra hard work and effort.My local store. Bit of fame for Glasgow. Always found the staff very helpful there. Lovely store.
What do we think about this scenario?
A store decided to renovate and hired non-union contractors. The union workers keep track of such things, and when they knew about this, they banded together in front of the store each day and put out a huge balloon of a rat, protesting and yelling slogans at the store and people who walked by.
I am not comparing this to the Apple situation. But I have seen this several times over the years and I felt bad for the non-union contractors. They didn't want to join a union and they were subjected to all this intimidation.
Also, shouldn't a store have the right to decide whom to hire? Or is the union correct whenever they do something like this, and the non-union workers and the store deserve the intimidation? Or perhaps those who support unions in general would agree that some tactics are not acceptable and not fair?
A store decided to renovate and hired non-union contractors. The union workers keep track of such things, and when they knew about this, they banded together in front of the store each day and put out a huge balloon of a rat, protesting and yelling slogans at the store and people who walked by.
I am not comparing this to the Apple situation. But I have seen this several times over the years and I felt bad for the non-union contractors. They didn't want to join a union and they were subjected to all this intimidation.
Also, shouldn't a store have the right to decide whom to hire? Or is the union correct whenever they do something like this, and the non-union workers and the store deserve the intimidation? Or perhaps those who support unions in general would agree that some tactics are not acceptable and not fair?
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The one you just made up? Irrelevant.
ORGANIZE, UNIONIZE, SOCIALIZE.
The only ones that truly fear Socialism with an Economy CONTROLLED by the people and working class for the people and working class are billionaires and corporations.
As both a consumer AND part of the working class I side with end users and workers over corporations and their 1% shareholders
ALWAYS!!
Workers and consumers/end users FIRST!!!
Do NOT feel bad for these $multi-trillion corporations and their wealthy greedy corporate "investor" shareholders.
They are often
anti-competitive
anti-consumer
anti-innovative
anti-democratic
Let's NOT forget.
The WORKERS have ALWAYS been the ones that generate the wealth of these corporations through their labor, services, production, thoughts and ideas.
The CONSUMERS/End users fuel the demand and pay for those aforementioned
All the while corporate execs AND corporate shareholders take the disproportionate amount of the wealth while doing little to jack s**t any of the work and suck companies dry with never ending dividends.
Do NOT feel bad at all for them.
The only ones that truly fear Socialism with an Economy CONTROLLED by the people and working class for the people and working class are billionaires and corporations.
As both a consumer AND part of the working class I side with end users and workers over corporations and their 1% shareholders
ALWAYS!!
Workers and consumers/end users FIRST!!!
Do NOT feel bad for these $multi-trillion corporations and their wealthy greedy corporate "investor" shareholders.
They are often
anti-competitive
anti-consumer
anti-innovative
anti-democratic
Let's NOT forget.
The WORKERS have ALWAYS been the ones that generate the wealth of these corporations through their labor, services, production, thoughts and ideas.
The CONSUMERS/End users fuel the demand and pay for those aforementioned
All the while corporate execs AND corporate shareholders take the disproportionate amount of the wealth while doing little to jack s**t any of the work and suck companies dry with never ending dividends.
Do NOT feel bad at all for them.
If I said what I really thought about this comment, the moderators of this site would delete my response. Teach me to stick my nose into affairs I should stay out of…SAYS WHO?