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Apple Store Employee Attempts To Form Union
An anonymous reader writes "Cory Moll, a part-time employee at an Apple store in San Francisco, is attempting unionize Apple store employees. The Apple Retail Workers Union is an attempt to fight for better wages and benefits and to address what he says are unfair practices in the company's glass-and-steel retail showrooms. 'The core issues are definitely involve compensation, pay, benefits,' said Mr. Moll, who has received little public support from employees so far, though he said he has emails expressing support. An Apple representative confirmed Mr. Moll is an employee, but declined to comment on the union effort."
Reminds me that Americans are assholes when it comes to labor rights.
When that happens, *they* (the rich/powerful/police etc) will have all the guns/food, control of all purchases/transport/employment etc. And you'll be utterly fucked.
If you feel you're not being paid enough, ask for a raise. If you don't get it and you're still unhappy, then change workplace. It's not that hard. And this is even from a part-time employee...
I'm not fond of unions myself. I like the idea, but unions are like every other organization: they refuse to disband or become inactive when their goals are accomplished. For unions, once safe workplaces and decent wages are established, the next growth area for them is politics and that's the problem. But to play Devil's advocate here... I have a question for you.
If we do things your way it will turn into a race to the bottom. If you are not being paid enough (and actually have a legitimate reason to believe that), sure you can change jobs. That won't be easy in this job market but it can be done. The problem is, your replacement is going to make the same inadequate wage that you did and is likely to make less since they just joined and haven't been with the company any length of time. You have no guarantee you won't end up in the same situation at the new company you work for, especially in the form of added responsibilities with no matching increase in pay. When this keeps happening across an industry it serves to stagnate wages or even drive them down.
Just think about mobile phone providers in the US. There are several different companies. They compete with each other. You'd think this would have certain effects, such as at least one company that charges a realistic rate for text messaging that actually reflects the marginal cost of delivery. The first company to do that could seriously undercut the competition. Fact is, they all grossly overcharge for texting and they all make more money that way. None of them want to rock that boat. It's de facto collusion, of the sort that doesn't have to be deliberately pre-arranged. Why do you think that can't happen to the job market? If no employer will pay a wage that realistically reflects the value you provide for the company, you either suck it up or get a new skillset and find a different line of work.
A union can actually force an employer to pay a higher, or if you like more reasonable, wage. That can be the case whether the employee is you or someone else. They can increase the average "going rate" for a worker in your industry, something other companies do look at when deciding how to attract the talent they want. Unions are an answer to the fact that any single employee is going to be replacable and that employers generally have the advantage in the job market due to overwhelming resources and the effects of "organization vs. individual, let's bargain".
> Honest question, I just don't understand the attitude
It's about justice, agreements being voluntary to both sides, and reality reflecting the true economic value of labor.
In addition, there is a long tradition here of unions protecting incompetent employees, "pay for seniority", and other unfair practices. While it's highly imperfect, non-union places at least *try* to pay for performance rather than merely how many years you sat on your ass.
I can't find the link now, I'm sorry, but there was an article several years ago comparing US unionized steel plants to non-union plants. The ONLY profitable plants were the non-union plants. Their working condition were no worse than the unionized plants, and they were succeeding against foreign competitors in a way the union plants were not. When workers are protected no matter how lax they get, they get lax.
Ultimately you don't get to have your cake and eat it too. If another competitor (say, China) is willing to have labor reflect its true economic value, and you are not, well, your jobs go to China. We're seeing that effect now, and it is killing the nation as our entire manufacturing base moves overseas.
My industry is non-union and it is one of the last remaining one where the US has a domestic presence. Coincidence? Well, I doubt it. Obviously other will disagree.
Unions are a relic of the movements that won us the 8-hour day, workplace safety laws, OSHA, the Fair Labor Standards Act, whistle-blower protection laws, retirement benefits, employer-subsidized health insurance... and that's just off the top of my head.
To understand recursion, you must first understand recursion.
Cory Moll was reported missing today by his family. They also expressed concern about a chrome statue placed in front of the local Apple store in Cory's exact image and dimensions. An Apple store representative said, "We wished to express our gratitude for Mr. Moll's concerns and have thus erected this statue, and will do so for any other employee who does the same."
It's better to vote for what you want and not get it than to vote for what you don't want and get it.
- E. Debs
Your disdain for the common working man is remarkable. As is the attitude that people don't deserve better until they're up the ladder pissing down on little people. It takes everyone from the laborer to the CEO to make a successful company and ALL of these people deserve a fair deal and some dignity.
If all else fails, immortality can always be assured by spectacular error.
I think this asshat needs to take a long, hard look at the rest of the industry. He's working a retail storefront job. He's getting paid $14/hr when hardly any other retail job is going to pay like that, and Apple happens to offer very good benefits. Medical starts from day 1 for full-time employees, at least. Want to go to school? Apple will help you do it! The employee discounts aren't bad at all, either, usually 25% off.
If the employees are happy with their renumeration and benefits then the union bid will fail. If they're unhappy, it's more likely to succeed.
In Ontario, Canada there's a good amount of car manufacturing that goes on with quite a few different companies. GM is fairly prevalent to the areas to the east of Toronto (e.g., Oshawa), and all of the plants are unionized (AFAIK). To the west of Toronto, Toyota has a manufacturing plant in Cambridge. The CAW (~UAW) has been trying to unionize it for over a decade, and every time a vote came up, the workers have rejected unionization.
If you have an enlightened employer you don't need a union. I've never worked there, but from what I've heard, Apple is generally a pretty good company to work for.
If this employee has grievances and/or problems with the job, I would hope Apple would look at them and hopefully address some of them. If they're egregious grievances, and Apple is brushing them off, then a union may be the only way to rectify things. While the labour code has certainly improved since the time of Charles Dickens, it still takes resources to fight a legal battle if you've been aggrieved, and a union has better resources than a regular schmoe—who may be forced to get a second-rate settlement because they can't the lawyer's fee for proper 'justice'.
You can certainly go too far in the power of unions, but so too can you go too far in the lack of them and the power of large companies. The trick is finding a balance between the rights & responsibilities of workers and the rights & responsibilities of companies. Demonizing one or the other completely is just silliness.
YOU ARE EXPENDABLE.
Perhaps. (I have always liked the line (supposedly) from Charles De Gaulle: The graveyards are full of indispensable men.)
However, treating your employees like cogs (or used tissues) is not a good way to run a company (IMHO), or to keep morale up. It's why unions were formed in the first place: so that employees couldn't be tossed aside while refuse, and that they were treated with some kind of respect.
Having good benefits is a reason not to get unionised!?!?!?
Unions are there not only to fight for something new, but to make sure that benefits aren't taken away without a good reason. Getting quarterly results up is not a good reason...
"Why, oh why, would "the rich" want to keep people from bettering themselves"
You're misunderstanding their intentions. They don't want money (they've got that in spades), they want Power. The power to control humanity for whatever ends they see fit.
"You're either making the very old, very silly mistake that there is a fixed amount of wealth,"
You're right, wealth is not finite, but neither is human greed & lust for power.
Whatever you have, I can make myself rich by taking it away from you, no matter how small. That's because if I can take away just a small amount of wealth from a million people, I'm rich. There's an unlimited supply of asshats willing to do that. Keeping them in check is your 'price of freedom'.
To put it more succinctly: "What good is being rich if nobody's poor?"
On the subject of conspiracies, all I can say is God Damn the JFK'ers. There are real conspiracies against the working man. Lots of them. Their not even hiding the fact. You can go to the web sites of any right wing think tank and they talk openly about them. A conspiracy is just bunch of people working towards a specific goal. Stop confusing the right wing conspiracy to lower the standard of living of most Americans with nut jobs going off about JFK and space aliens. Until you can get past that they'll just divide and conqueror us.
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That was a joke, right?
In case you're actually as clueless as that, we're talking about people who need to work at the Apple store to scrape by, not engineers making cushy 6-figure salaries. There's a huge chasm between having recruiters calling daily to poach you and not being able to take take off an hour in the middle of the workday because rent is due. You're one of the lucky few to be completely oblivious to how most Americans actually live. Work retail for a few months without using your current assets and credit- you'll get a real education. It ain't pretty.
No. Unions are useful in one case, and only one case: when a lack of industry regulation puts workers in peril. Unions were once necessary to combat hazardous working conditions, unreasonable hours, and mistreatment (i.e., verbal and physical abuse). In today's industrialized countries, strong laws and regulations exist to protect employees from these perils and thus unions are, in the vast majority of cases, completely unnecessary.
Today's unions are used not for protecting workers, but instead:
- bargaining for pay raises and other benefit increases
- organizing election votes along the union's party line
- making it unduly difficult to fire under-performing employees
- making it impossible (and sometimes illegal) to hire otherwise qualified non-union employees
- requiring that a worker join the union upon employment and pay union dues, even if she desires no union representation
So, unions probably are necessary right now in some newly-industrialized countries like China where "middle-class" just means "don't have to steal food anymore." But here in the good old Magnited States of America, our society has evolved to include strong worker protection laws.
Now, even if I were to believe that most unions had a place in modern western industrialized nations, Apple Inc. employees would still pretty much the last ones in the entire universe who would be qualified to join the trade union party. I have close friends who worked in Apple stores and they certainly did not think they were mistreated. Yeah, you have to drink a lot of Apple koolaid. And yes, they said it was demanding work. But the benefits sounded quite reasonable (certainly better than what I was getting at the time for similar work) and they gained experience, solid resume material, and tons of networking. I think most any Slashdotter will agree that most entry-level I.T. and retail jobs are far worse than having to pitch Apple gear all day long.
</rant>
But he's not the only one...
Quo usque tandem abutere, Nimbus, patientia nostra?
Here in Europe the right to join a collective organisation is a legal right so Apple or any other employees can engage in free collective bargaining with the man. Heck, here we even have tenants unions where our lawyers are smarter and cheaper than their lawyers. This freedom can often be a huge surprise to some American Companies. For eight years Walmart attempted to colonise the German retail industry. They were unaware of a) cultural differences and b) the power of the Workers Committee. Their Orwellian behaviour, spying on employees, banning staff romances and trying to coerce the staff into informing on each other was not surprisingly resisted by ver.di (the union), the staff and the general consensus of popular opinion. The experience proved so unmanageable for them they eventually disposed of their German assets to Metro and left the country.
Sadly Huey Helicopters were not involved but would have looked so good.
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If you feel you're not being paid enough, ask for a raise. If you don't get it and you're still unhappy, then change workplace. It's not that hard. And this is even from a part-time employee...
What a standard line. You've clearly never worked in a hostile workplace have you? The "If you don't like it, there's the door" attitude is nice in theory. The In practice all that happens is any self-respecting ambitious individual moves on to some other job, and you're left with the disrespectful unambitious drips that can't work anywhere else. Often the employer just uses the high staff turnover to have a workplace full of cheap expendable employees, some middle manager gets a wage raise himself, out of all this. Costs saved from paying your staff less, neglecting the work environment are quickly wiped out by abject business failure. You quickly end up with employees who don't give a damn, you know the kind. Customer service standards will degrade, sales will struggle, you'll have more employees acting up, management will struggle with discipline, will have to be harsh. Showing up drunk or not at all and some outright bilking the business. Eventually, something has to give. You pay peanuts, you get monkeys.
I've been a middle manager in a hostile work place, I moved real quick on rather than standing my ground and trying to fix things. Later the union did move into the work place - a rather easy target due to the catastrophically low moral and flagging sales.
But as you say, people could ask for raises and make demands, you can't get fired for asking nicely and stating your case, and if you do, in most countries you can dispute wrongful dismissal. It's disappointing that more employees don't put up more of a fight if they want their work place to be better. It's just a shame that unions have to be paid to do it for them.
After logging in slashdot still does not take you back to the page you were on. It's been that way for 20 years.