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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.
Here you go!
Actually, under Federal labor law, you can't be fired for advocating unionization. If you live in an at-will state, you can be terminated arbitrarily, but then a) you're eligible for unemployment, and b) if you WERE agitating for a union, and fired "without cause", you can drag your former employer in front of the NLRB for a lengthy and costly arbitration process.
To understand recursion, you must first understand recursion.
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.
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.
My sister opened a computer store in Hawaii. She sells C shells by the seashore.
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.
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.
and I doubt most of us could imagine a world without capitalism.
It's easy if you try.
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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Dude, this is great. You should write a song about this.
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.