Unionized Maryland Apple Store Workers Request 10% Raise and Option to Accept Customer Tips

[Scott6666]

Close the store down completely.

 

[bousozoku]

Apple made $117 Billion revenue last quarter. FFS pay these people more. And for those who demonise Unions. You happy for obscene corporate profits while underpaying the very staff that are responsible? As for tipping, that's a bit counterproductive. In Australia we dont tip and businesses have to pay people appropriately. Tips generally are used as an excuse to subsidise the wages when the business should be paying people more.

I have seen unions ruin towns in the U.S.A. because they had to have their way. Unions I've seen will protect the lazy instead of pushing them to do their job.

I'm not sure why anyone should be given gifts to do their job properly.

 

[Scoob Redux]

The raise I can see. But tips? I've never, ever, tipped at a retail store. That's just...weird. Maybe it was a throw-away negotiation request that they thought they could just say "okay, we'll take away the tipping request to get this deal done", but it stuck anyway. Like "We want the letter "M" stricken from the alphabet" or something else ludicrous.

I doubt it was a negotiation tactic.
I'm sure Apple is behind it. After all, if customers start subsidizing wages (by tipping), Apple saves money by not having to pay as much in wages. In effect, this would be Apple pushing their responsibility for paying decent wages onto the customer in order to increase corporate profit. Same reason restaurants, Uber, and others are pushing tip inflation to 20%, 22%, 25%, etc. The more that customers pay directly to employees, the less the corporations will pay. We really need to end tipping and put the responsibility back on employers to pay decent wages.

 

[Darth.Titan]

In my book tipping is reserved for full-service restaurant workers only. Many people do not know that minimum wage for servers is $2.17/hr and rarely do you get an increase. Therefore, I don't mind tipping 20%.
At a fast food restaurant, employees are paid at least minimum wage, and nowadays to be competitive most places exceed that by quite a bit. No thanks, I'm not tipping. Maybe a buck or two for special attention occasionally.
I do not think tipping should be abolished altogether though. My wife is a server, and with tips she makes around $30 an hour. If she went to minimum wage+ it would result in a serious pay cut. Sure the restaurant could make up the difference, but that would still come out of our pockets by exorbitantly expensive prices.
I'll admit I don't know what the answer is, but an Apple Store employee making $20+ an hour is not entitled to a tip. Giving great service is a part of doing your job. Sorry, but that's how I feel.

 

[Scott6666]

Next can we add a feature to iOS that we tip engineers for adding features or fixing bugs?

 

[jz0309]

raise? sure, we all need it ...

tip? really? do I tip in a grocery store? do it tip when I get my car serviced? this is a joke ...

 

[bLackjackj]

They should negotiate for commission instead.

You are 100% correct. I'm all for this, apart from the tipping. The union should be negotiating for commission on sold hardware, as other retailers do.

Folks, I realise you don't understand unions and EBA negotiations, but this is how it starts. We are fairly used to it in Australia so stop dramatising it! They WILL negotiate from high, usually down to a balanced EBA. Fair for the staff and employer. Unions have changed the workplace in Australia, in that they have managed to provide for fair pay, fair hours, pay for overtime, Annual leave, Personal leave rights etc.

Do you guys realise that the US is the only country in the "free" world without Annual Leave entitlements??

 

[snak-atak]

Yeah all for worker rights, but tips, thats a HARD NO, sorry folks you had me till you wanted tips. Raises sure, leave you bet, tips.... come one even going there just makes your ask look bad....

Tips, no. Performance reviews with incremental raises when deserved is the way to go.

$1/hr for First Aid/CPR cert, maybe, but only for limited personnel (1-2 per shift). How many injuries do they expect to treat on a regular basis?

34 weeks of severance pay for layoffs? HECK NO. Don't give poor performing employees a paycheck for an additional year when fired. That's what UI is for.

Extended paid bereavement leave up to 45 days per year, with pets and close friends to be included under the allowed time off, and expanded vacation pay. 🤣😂🤣. My daughter once came home with a bag full of 'rubbish' fish, the kind you win at a carnival game. She started with about a dozen fish, and one by one they died as they do. One or two a week. A couple hung on for about a year but that's another story. Would I be allowed paid bereavement every time one of those fish died?

This is not negotiating. This is "let's throw stuff to the wall and see what sticks." If Apple gives in to even half of these demands, then I'll move to Maryland and apply for a job at that store.

 

[BellSystem]

Oh you want a tip?!

Great!

Here is a tip: Don't be check in drones and actually assist customers when they need it. Having to wait 30 minutes to buy a watch because "you didn't make an appointment to purchase it", and watching you chat with other employees while we are all waiting is ridiculous.

Here is another tip: If you are a "genius", you should probably know how to do basic things without Googling it in front of the customer. MacRumors should not be a source of troubleshooting for you. I have literally watched a guy helping me looking up how to get a Watch into recovery mode from MacRumors.

These people are so entitled it's not even funny. Tips...lol. If they want to make money so bad, maybe Apple should switch to commission only for these people. Maybe then they will appreciate the pretty sweet setup they have.

I worked for a few years in a place that I had to run credit checks on people. When you see the paychecks of these folks.....you won't feel bad. They make more than most professional jobs that don't require a degree. Heck they make more than most MSP IT Techs. I wouldn't feel so bad for them.

 

[coolfactor]

Tips? **** that. You don't get a tip simply for doing your job. Tipping is utterly out of hand anymore and this is coming from someone who used to tip even though I knew it was BS.

Now I only tip for sit down restaurant service, period.

I'm okay with tips, so long as it's not expected, mandatory or too high. Tips were originally an extra "thank you" for excellent service, not just for service in general. The service needs to be extraordinary to be worthy of a tip, like if the worker offered to carry the Mac Pro to my car because I'm in a wheelchair. That would be worthy, not simply for selling it to me.

If you (whoever reads this) are in a tip-based career, I hope you don't waste energy being angry when a customer didn't tip you, because clearly you didn't deserve it.

 

[bLackjackj]

We need to be phasing tipping out of our society, not increasing it.

No tipping in Australia and we survive. This is because we have minimum awards,..thanks to union EBA's across many organisation's including hospitality.

 

[JPack]

Americans

LOL

 

[sw1tcher]

Do you guys realise that the US is the only country in the "free" world without Annual Leave entitlements??

Yes. And even when employers offer paid time off, some employees are afraid to use it for fear of being terminated. Crazy.

Fear of Getting Fired: Employees Are Forgoing Vacations

Many Americans forego vacations because of job-loss fears. Learn how to promote a culture of time off in your business to improve work-life balance.

www.businessnewsdaily.com

The U.S. needs something similar to the EU's Working Time Directive

 

[TheYayAreaLiving 🎗️]

Question for everyone:

If this gets approved. Does that mean I have to tip Tim Cook as well at an Apple Store?

 

[Dark_Omen]

I’ll give these guys a tip… Ask for commission based pay or shut up about your wages.

 

[Premium1]

LOL.

Tip for what? Do you tip at Best Buy? Target?

Like everything else, don't fall for social pressure and tip $0.

Agree. I am all for workers making $$ but what are they doing that deserves a tip? Running to the back to get the device you bought? LOl

 

[minik]

This is not okay!

 

[snak-atak]

You are 100% correct. I'm all for this, apart from the tipping. The union should be negotiating for commission on sold hardware, as other retailers do.

Folks, I realise you don't understand unions and EBA negotiations, but this is how it starts. We are fairly used to it in Australia so stop dramatising it! They WILL negotiate from high, usually down to a balanced EBA. Fair for the staff and employer. Unions have changed the workplace in Australia, in that they have managed to provide for fair pay, fair hours, pay for overtime, Annual leave, Personal leave rights etc.

Do you guys realise that the US is the only country in the "free" world without Annual Leave entitlements??

Maybe I don't understand Australia, but any reputable union in the USA doesn't start negotiations like this. No one in retail gets paid double-time right on hour 41. Time-and-half is the standard unless it's peak season. Likewise, tips are reserved for service industries such as restaurants, hotels, hospitality, and other personal services and not retail.

And when you start to muddle tips and commissions with product sales, it gets messy real quickly. It'll turn into a car dealership in no time with the salesmen hawking at the front door. They'll walk around with you, sure. Then they'll offer you a 'test drive' on one of their premium maxed out iPhone Pro Max. Or they'll even tell you that you NEED a custom MacBook Pro when you only came for a basic Air model. They'll even hold your phone for you while you try out the new one, but they'll hold it hostage until you commit to a new purchase. And once you make your purchase, they'll move on to the next victim without any post-purchase customer service that they are known to provide today. And don't even ask about coming in for warranty repairs or a 'small' purchase such as AirPods. None of the salesmen will want to even look at you!

 

[Spock]

How long until Apple starts pulling a Walmart and starts closing down unionized stores? They will be “underperforming”

 

[DMG35]

Tipping culture is completely out of hand. There is a 0% chance I would ever tip an Apple employee.

They should be tipping me for all the **** I buy from them LOL.

 

[0924487]

Looking at this from the UK where tipping is rare because we pay the same national minimum wage (or above) to serving staff as anyone else. Most of the rest would be taken for granted here

In Canada they are paid a very competitive minimum wage at $16.55, yet they still ask for 20% tips on top of that.

 

[snak-atak]

Close the store down completely.

If it helps to reduce the costs of future AAPL purchases, then yes!

 

[Metatron]

Just close the store and layoff all the staff. To ask for tips shows they have lost their mind. You can not trust them with the brand name at this point.

 

[gugy]

The tip system in the US is a joke. In most countries, a surcharge is already included in the bill for certain services. (primarily restaurants). This is another way to screw workers by paying cheap minimum wages in the expectation of recouping it in tips. Give people a fair and honest salary and leave this BS behind. The problem is these gigantic corporations want to squeeze their labor force to maximize profits for shareholders. It's a sad state of affairs.

 

[0924487]

If Apple starts doing this, everyone else will too, and they will drop everyone down to tipping wages across the industry and all the cost increase will be on us to make up while the companies make record profits. Just like they’ve been making record profits since the pandemic and yet they keep citing “inflation” which is completely made up because their profits wouldn’t be so high it they were just adjusting for inflation.

Make tipping illegal and require a living wage! And if companies don’t pay a fair wage for the work produced, people wont work there. You’ve seen that happen since the pandemic. Tons of low-income labor was deported, while tons of people retired early. People were able to move up to better paying positions. The tipping system in the US is so jacked up. You’re expected to tip even for poor service, which makes me wonder why the customer has to pay an employee’s wages?

Don’t get me wrong, I tip, but tipping amounts keep going up too. I hear people talking about how 30-35% is the standard rate now, with 40-50% for a good job. Excuse me? When I was younger back in the 2000s I would tip 20% for an amazing job, 15% for average, and 10% for poor, and 25 cents tor abysmal. And I can only think of one abysmal—waitress sat over to the far corner of the restaurant (it wasn’t busy) chatting with friends the whole time and never once checked on us. Once we finally flagged her down, she says “Why didn’t you tell me your food was wrong.” After I had finished eating it. OKAY. Not to mention our empty drinks. Only time I genuinely got upset at a worker, but even then she still got a quarter.

And for these reasons we barely eat out anymore except for special occasions. Or I order carryout, which they also expect a tip for just handing me my bag of food? Nope. I refuse that. But they are probably spitting on my food when they see no tip. And so I don’t do that often. You know what I’ve done? I’ve gotten really good at cooking at home. Between my smoker, charcoal grill and pizza oven, I can make all the tasty things. And it saves us a ton! Screw this stupid culture of tipping such high amounts. With YouTube anyone with half a brain can make amazing food at home. Our friends told us to open a restaurant, lol. And if I did I wouldn’t have tipping and pay them well! And I would advertise it as no tipping, which I’m sure would draw a lot of interest. But I would never because it’s difficult to open a successful restaurant.

And to reiterate to the dummies reading this comment that are probably frothing at the mouth, I’m not saying not to tip people. But I’m saying we need to replace it with a better system as a society—NOT expand it to places like Apple and the rest of retail!! These employees are only hastening their demise as many more people will shop online to avoid this.

In Canada tipped employees are paid the same minimum wage, 16.55, yet they still ask for 20% tip. It’s greed.