President Biden Praises Apple Employees in Maryland for Unionizing

[Hessian]

It would be wonderful to see what "The decision to form a union is about us as workers gaining access to rights that we do not currently have" entails.

Without this data, we can only guess. One data point is the experience to compensation comparisons for retail vs apple retail. I feel like the $22/hr rumor is asinine for the talent they seek, but they can afford it. I would imagine this would be the first of many more to come if $22/hour for someone with little to no education sparks this type of response.

Apple to boost corporate, retail pay amid inflation and union drive

Apple will boost retail wages to $22/hour and will increase its compensation budget.

fortune.com

Again, strange considering these data points, along with the current market already being one that favors the talent. $20-22/hr for a high school grad is a great deal for far less stress than many other retail/.

 

[PinkyMacGodess]

Here is what will happen. Apple will close the store. In fact some day they will likely close all the stores. Brick and mortar stores are all well and good but all they really need is an agreement with best buy to act as a warranty return depot and provide all customer support virtually.

They aren't Walmart. Walmart gets HUGE handouts from the communities they inhabit. One community was tired of the extra policing for their parking lots, and the garbage blowing around their community, so they wanted to renegotiate their sweetheart deal for property taxes and sales taxes (Walmart often gets deals where they pay no property taxes and keep all sales tax collected). So Walmart closed the store and built a new one just across the county line where they got a better deal. Just like that, *BOOM* they up and moved. It was widely reported at the time. A smallish town here was about to get a Walmart, and the people were furious. They were able to stop it from coming in, and in the process exposed the amount of money Walmart donated to local politicians to 'grease the skids' and get it built. Walmart makes billions in profits, saves billions in tax giveaways, and shoves their employees onto public assistance. All while supporting some of the worst of the worst in politicians.

Walmart is infamous for firing all of their meat cutters overnight when they formed a union. Walmart is ruthless and cruel, and yet still very popular. The high cost of low prices...

 

[jonblatho]

From what I read Apple retail not a bad place to work. Especially, compared to other retailers

The bar is in hell.

 

[rhett7660]

Gas is $9 per gallon in the UK!

We’ll never agree Sid, that’s fine.
The underlying problem in most industry is the balance between employer and employee. For centuries employers have screwed employees into the ground. Unions managed to claw that back in the 1970s then, arguably, took advantage and started to screw the employer.
There is a balance and it has not been reached. These days employers are screwing over employees again.
Apple does not give its retail employees stability as far as shift patterns are concerned. This makes it hard for employees to plan their leisure/family lives.
There is no reason for this Apple have the data and could make life easier for people. The result is a union, a natural consequence.

Must be because of all of the "free" stuff you guys have in the UK. No? Heck, we don't have the "free" stuff and we have gas hitting $8.00 a gallon...

 

[zorinlynx]

Side note... I think it is BS the Biden is so hell bent on pushing unionization, that credits for Americans buying EVs only go to those who bought cars from unionized automakers. Tesla has been at the forefront of making electric vehicles a real thing, but you can't get a credit for a Tesla... because "Tesla made by Elon. Elon is rich man. Rich man bad."

It's not that Elon is rich, it's that he's become increasingly unhinged in the past few years. It all started with "pedo guy" and he's been on a train to crazy ever since.

The guy just fired the diversity teams at Tesla, for example. He's not a good man and he's getting worse as time goes on.

 

[hans1972]

If you don't like what you're paid, go somewhere else. They're unskilled retail workers that have no leverage and it's going to be hilarious when it explodes in their faces.

That's why they want to organise themselves.

Unskilled and alone with little resources ≈ no negotiation power
Unskilled and many with shared resources ≈ some negotiation powers

 

[cocky jeremy]

That's why they want to organise themselves.

Unskilled and alone with little resources ≈ no negotiation power
Unskilled and many with shared resources ≈ some negotiation powers

Not if Apple ignores them and then replaces them when they refuse to go to work.

 

[hans1972]

first kid was born under apple health care - $400. second kid born when I was at a biotech, $4,700.

Why did you have to pay $4,700 when you got a child?

 

[rp100]

What I really want to see is a follow-up story with the cost of union dues and what terms were negotiated. I.e. what are the newly unionized employees getting in exchange for their money and loss of individual agency?

 

[siddavis]

We’ll never agree Sid, that’s fine.
The underlying problem in most industry is the balance between employer and employee. For centuries employers have screwed employees into the ground. Unions managed to claw that back in the 1970s then, arguably, took advantage and started to screw the employer.
There is a balance and it has not been reached. These days employers are screwing over employees again.
Apple does not give its retail employees stability as far as shift patterns are concerned. This makes it hard for employees to plan their leisure/family lives.
There is no reason for this Apple have the data and could make life easier for people. The result is a union, a natural consequence.

No actually I agree that it is about achieving a balance, and history HAS shown abuses can be remedied by union representation. Good, healthy companies do not actively work against their employees' interests. I am not suggesting that there is not abuse, especially in industries where there are few (if any) alternatives for workers with a specific skillset. There I can see good arguments for union representation.

You state that shift patterns are lousy for Apple retail employees. I can empathize with that as my wife works in a system where her shifts are all over the place. As with everything in life there are tradeoffs. Is working for Apple, the salary, benefits, etc worth is to deal with the shift issue? My wife has decided that yes, the tradeoff is currently worth it, but she is always on the lookout for something better. So to me, the natural consequence is high turnover. Turnover (employee satisfaction) is the a cost/benefit calculation for Apple. Are these retail employees shackled to Apple?

 

[Neepman]

More money for workers and less money for trillion-dollar companies is always a good thing.

And more money from Unions dues pumped into the Democratic partys coffers is thing three.

 

[siddavis]

Yeah well when you have countries like the US where the federal minimum wage doesn't even help someone to rise above "poverty" then unions are bound to appear. And now with inflation being what it is... I'd say this or something worse would have been an expected outcome.

Minimum wage should not be the goal. Sorry if that sounds harsh, but I prefer to live in the real world and not some made up utopia that some think an elevated minimum wage brings. Also, you mention inflation... any idea what paying more for the same output produces?

 

[Homy]

It’s one of the many reasons Sweden produces and invents nothing of consequence

I suggest you educate yourself a bit by googling "Swedish inventions".

 

[NufSaid]

Wait until they are locked into a union contract and the store nearby gets raises and benefits and they are stuck paying union dues.

The unions would work better if the union thugs had to work there as well. The teachers union did nothing for my mom while they were there - basically ended up protecting bad apples jobs.

 

[haydn!]

Apple's arrogance is really coming around to bite it in the ass ain't it. This. The growing Government pressure internationally. This will become their downfall, not a product miss-step or buggy software feature.

 

[Macative]

Really? We are expected to work like dogs for little. I find it strange how so many working people are always on the corporations side, instead of the workers side (getting a fair wage and benefits).

When people have money, they tend to support the system that got them there. When people don't, they tend to rail against the system that they think is in their way.

I've mostly sided with business, as it is businesses that are created by hardworking and self-sacrificing people that provide jobs and income for many other not-so-hardworking people. But over time as I've come to see companies like Apple absorb so much of the wealth that exists in the world and give so little back to their employees and customers, I'm doubting a lot more than I used to. There is enough wealth being held onto and kept out of the economy to boost everyone's standard of living significantly, and that bothers me a bit.

 

[Macative]

Vacation days is one example. I read that at Apple you have to work three years before you can take your first vacation and then it's only 1-2 paid weeks? Here in Sweden you have five weeks paid vacation after one year and after certain age like 40 at some places like my former work you get 6 weeks.

LMAO. What kind of business is going to give you 5 weeks off from work, regardless of how long you've been working? That's wildly impractical.

 

[Macative]

It's not that Elon is rich, it's that he's become increasingly unhinged in the past few years. It all started with "pedo guy" and he's been on a train to crazy ever since.

The guy just fired the diversity teams at Tesla, for example. He's not a good man and he's getting worse as time goes on.

LOL. You act like this is a bad thing. Terminating racism at its core is a good thing. And yes, all diversity programs are racism.

 

[BaldiMac]

LMAO. What kind of business is going to give you 5 weeks off from work, regardless of how long you've been working? That's wildly impractical.

Wildly impractical? Where do you get that from? I get 26 vacation days per year plus 12 sick days.

 

[Tubamajuba]

Why did you have to pay $4,700 when you got a child?

He got the Child Pro Max version.

 

[Macative]

Let’s say every retail employee suddenly made $60,000 more than they make now, which is substantially more than double overall I suspect, that would cost an additional ~$4B/yr. That sounds like a lot, sure, but to put that in perspective Apple could never add money to their cash reserves and yet still pay that out of their cash reserves for the next century. On a income side Apple made $124B in revenue last *quarter*, let’s assume that suggests ~$500B/yr, the total sum here would be less than a 1% difference in revenue. And that’s not counting the fact that unions tend to reduce employee churn, a huge cost on the scale Apple employs at.

In other words, greed is literally the only thing standing in the way.

 

[Someyoungguy]

Wauv… some people actually dislikes this comment?!? So they prefer more money to shareholders and top management instead of workers?

Who’s gonna buy the products this company sells then?

If you give lower income groups more money they’re gonna spend it and return it into the society/business. If you give more money to the 1% richest they’re gonna spend it on sending cars into space.

This was the genius of Henry Ford, and it’s been all but forgotten in the US.

 

[ackmondual]

A lot of the current labour laws in the UK are in place because of unions (and the EU) so it’s probably still worth keeping them to protect them.

At least in the US, it takes awhile for the laws to catch up. Things with child labor, farmers and other businesses claiming "it's not illegal" so they're going to continue doing such things, etc.

 

[ackmondual]

You forgot to mention higher prices on products. The boy's at the top are not going to loose money.

Unions are NOT the way to go . Just more corruption

I'm not tied to Apple products, so if they want to raise prices, I'll take my business elsewhere. As much as I'm having fun playing video games on an iPad, I can easily forgo it when it comes time to replace it.

 

[ackmondual]

Fun fact: those kiosks don’t usually result in lower staffing levels, they just free up staff to do other things than taking all initial orders, which allows places to expand their menus or increase throughout, or cleanliness, or… etc while keeping the same staffing level

This ^^

People aren't aware that "in the olden days", buying from a grocery store, you would ask a shop employee for what you'd like. They would go to the back with the requested products, you'd pay, and be on your way. With supermarkets, they changed that paradigm by having us, the customer, do that. It may sound like "the business is being lazy", but it did have 2 benefits: 1) it frees up employees to do other things, and 2) the customer could know ahead of time how much things would cost (I guess them grocers didn't have signs up that posted the price of each item?). One difficult thing was to convince people to push around a shopping cart. Men didn't want to b/c it didn't seem "manly". Women already had to push around a baby carriage/stroller all day, and didn't want to push yet another thing around. I forgot what overcame these hurdles, but, suffice to say, we've gotten over them.

I am not American and was not aware of the maternity leave. That is something your government should deal with as a human right and not be left up to your unions, especially if you want equality for all people, not just those who have a union to back them.

I hardly believe there is a big culture of Americans not taking time off work for vacation. I have travelled many times in the US and if it is not Americans in their RV's or at national parks, monuments and everything else you have to do then your influx of foreign tourists is pretty impressive, especially when they sport American flags on everything showing their host country pride.

Another post covered that while there are some well traveled Americans, it's still overall bad. I hear stories how people work in food prep or kitchens and are only allowed to take unpaid leave if they're vomiting. If they're sneezing, coughing, or hacking out a lung, they'd get fired if they try to take off (all while cooking/heating your food).

I've heard stories from old timers how one person is listening in surprise how his coworkers are bragging about how much PTO they have NOT used... "I have 120 hours of vacation time". "I have 160 hours of PTO!". "Well, I haven't taken a vacation since the Clinton administration". And the 3 just high five each other. We're weird like that :\