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."

Comments

Re:Citation?

[John Bresnahan]

Here you go!

Re:So get a new job

[MrEricSir]

Dude, that's complete bullshit. The majority of Apple Store employees are part time and don't get any benefits (except for cheap benefits like commuter checks.) Part timers start at ~$12 an hour.

Apple Store has a reputation for firing people at the drop of a hat. There's simply no value for them in retaining employees in the long run simply BECAUSE their employees are easily replaceable and the cost of retention is higher than the cost of training.

Re:Unionize this

[MagusSlurpy]

Yeah, go ahead and form your "union". You will quickly find out just how replaceable you are.

He's just following Apple's lead - if you can't even replace batteries, certainly you can't replace employees.

Re:Unionize this

[EdZ]

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.

When that happens, you download an .stl file and print whatever object it is you wanted. It's already possible to build your own CNC mill/lathe, FDM machine, furnace, casting moulds, etc. With enough time and a bit of googling, you can make nearly anything at home (a few people have even fabricated and packaged their own microchips). That process will only become cheaper, faster and more automated.

Re:Reading these comments

[ffejie]

I think you're reading it wrong. I agree that a lot of the comments on here are pretty scary. Let me try a different approach.

What the above commenters mean when they say "be happy for what you get, you're unskilled labor," what they mean is: "Your value to the company is not above what you're paid. There are a sea of workers (supply) that can fill our need for people (demand) like you." Further, there are people that think that this worker is trying to change the terms of his employment, which seems unfair to the company. Let's say I hire you to paint my fence at $10/hour. Half way through the job, you come back to me and tell me that you need $15/hour to finish the fence. Obviously I have the right to tell you that I will hire your brother to paint it at $10/hour to finish the job. Introducing the union aspect to this situation gets a lot of people riled up, and some pretty strong emotions come out.

What I want to know is: what is this really about? Does the guy just want to be paid more, or does he feel like Apple is making too much money and needs to return it to their employees at a higher rate?

Re:This is a Complete Non Story

[Martin Blank]

I work as a non-union contractor in an otherwise largely-union environment. The general workers have one union and the managers have another union. Most of the people just want to get their work done and go home. I don't see too many differences between my contracting colleagues and the employees. The union is vocal, but has understood that not everyone can keep their jobs in the current environment. They accepted unpaid furloughs in lieu of actual pay rate cuts, and when the numbers clearly showed that wasn't working, they accepted that a lot of people had to be laid off. While I disagree with some of their stances, they're a reasonable union in my books.

OTOH, my dad worked in aerospace for the better part of two decades. Union actions were fairly common. He took part in them for a while until he saw union reps being driven up in towncars and limousines, wearing expensive clothes, and generally doing a lot better than he did. Eventually, he lost faith in them and started crossing the picket lines. He had an advantage that others did not, though. At more than six feet in height, looking every bit the biker that he was, and with most people knowing that he had plenty of other biker friends at the plant who had his back, no one messed with him or his truck or motorcycle. Other people who crossed the lines weren't so lucky.

Incidentally, his willingness to cross the lines and keep working got him transferred to working on military aircraft (tankers and cargo planes). He still says, many years after that company ceased to exist, that he was happier seeing through his work ethic and getting something done than being on the picket lines, losing money while union leaders haggled for weeks over a few cents an hour worth of pay or benefits.

Listing his grievances...

[ScottyLad]

Interesting, having clicked through the links on the OP, I got to This interview which gives us a better insight...

"Among the specific issues is ambiguity about how company policies and regulations are administered and enforced, Moll says. Many policies are set at the corporate level, but regional and store managers have discretion to change the rules or enforce them differently..."

Umm... correct me if I'm wrong, but this is how management works, and why there's a manager in every store adapting to what works best for their particular store.

Even pay has its variabilities. “They don’t really have a pay scale. I believe that’s largely up to each region and each market,” Moll says. Like most national companies, Apple’s pay rates vary according by region. But unlike most companies, store managers seem to have the ability to hire new employees at rates beyond the range, Moll says.

Again, this is a little thing called "empowerment" which means their store managers can actually make decisions on how to best run their particular store. I'm guessing the cost of living differs dramatically across all the locations where Apple has stores, and store mangers could use the discretion to retain particularly valuable staff who might have an extra hour's commute, for example?

"Moll also says there’s a lot of “favoritism among store management teams, or un-favoritism,” when good-performing employees are unfairly evaluated. “They try to find ways to get rid of those employees, where they may be scrutinized more than others,” he says"

Now this one seems to be the crux of the matter. personally I find it hard to believe that store managers are queuing up to get rid of their best performing employees. I could, however, understand if a store manager paid particular attention to someone who might be doing decent sales, but had an attitude problem that could cause issues.

From that interview, everything he says makes Apple look like a progressive employer who empowers their management to reward the staff who add value to the business. This sounds like sour grapes from someone who has worked "in multiple stores" and can't get past the shop floor for whatever reason. Could it be the big chip on his shoulder noticing that other people seem to be doing better than him?

Re:Reading these comments

[xero314]

Aside from jobs like mine...there are hardly any good reasons for unions to exist in the US anymore.

Don't think I've ever seen such blatant hypocrisy. If even a single job in the has reason for a labor union, then they all do. There is nothing special about certain jobs that make them more in need of collective bargaining.

Re:Unionize this

[Dog-Cow]

Concentration of wealth into the hands of the few is still Capitalism. Concentration of power is the antithesis of Communism. Please don't let the USSR taint your view of what Communism is. They were Communist in name only.