Apple retail workers seeking to unionize

[wunderbar]

From Macworld (http://www.macworld.com/article/159968/2011/05/apple_retail_workers_union.html#lsrc.rss_main):


As Apple celebrates the tenth anniversary of its retail stores, a group of Apple Store employees is assembling with a different goal. An organization calling itself the Apple Retail Workers Union (http://www.appleretailunion.com/) sent a message to various members of the Apple press on Thursday, including Macworld, announcing plans to try to unionize Apple Store employees.

We are launching today to get fellow employees, shoppers, and the world know that we work in one of the most demanding retail environments while suffering through unfair treatment and compensation among many other various issues... We deserve better. Our time has come.

Someone responding to e-mails sent to the Apple Retail Workers Union—who chose to remain anonymous, but claims to work at an Apple store “in the Bay Area”—told Macworld that employees from “some stores in the Pacific Northwest may be talking amongst themselves” about unionizing, and that “an attempt at [the] Alderwood store… is the closest anyone has come to collective action” at Apple stores.

When pressed for examples of the “unfair treatment” cited in the group’s initial press release, the anonymous respondent suggested that core issues included break schedules, training opportunities, the selection and hiring process for internal candidates for open positions, and wages.

It’s unclear how serious or large an effort the Apple Retail Workers Union is at this time. The Website linked above is barren. The group's Twitter page (http://twitter.com/#!/AAPLRetailUnion) includes two tweets, one from January 1, 2011, and a second from Thursday. The group’s Facebook page (http://www.facebook.com/AppleRetailWorkersUnion?sk=info) contains a few links posted back in February, and at this writing has been "liked" precisely once.

Apple has not yet responded to Macworld’s request for comment.

[CynicalIdealist]

This just in: white liberal yuppies experience collective cognitive dissonance, commit mass suicide. More at 11.

[Rusty Shackleford]

This just in: white liberal yuppies experience collective cognitive dissonance, commit mass suicide. More at 11.
Dude, workers are workers.

If they are seeking to unionize then they are moving towards trade union consciousness. they arent owners of shareholders. they are retail workers.

Im a retail worker, am i a white liberal yuppie? Or, are they "white liberal yuppies" because of the product they move for the capitalist? If thats the case, im a reactionary redneck healthnut since i sell everything from shoes to tents to firearms and fucking zhu zhu pets and shakeweights.

[Stranger Than Paradise]

This just in: white liberal yuppies experience collective cognitive dissonance, commit mass suicide. More at 11.

What are you talking about?

How could any wage labourer be a Yuppie?

[Proukunin]

exactly. I don't see them investing in business. Yuppie is for people who used to be hippies and turned out to be business executives.

[danyboy27]

i work in a computer store so fuck yea. right on!

[danyboy27]

This just in: white liberal yuppies experience collective cognitive dissonance, commit mass suicide. More at 11.

i dont know for the saleperson but the service departement folks in that kind of environnement are definitively not yuppies i can tell you that, they are normal wage worker yelled at, pressured and stressed out by the higher up.

the fact that they where able to get their shit together like this is extremely impressing to me.

[x371322]

I'm glad to hear this. In solidarity! :)

[reformnow88]

Awesome! This is good to hear laborers everywhere need to unite and and unionize.

[Welshy]

Does anyone know what larger organization this union will be affiliated with, like the IWW, SEIU or something else?

[Rss]

As much as I despise those overpriced, underpowered, overengineered white pieces of disgustingly round plastic, I'm pleasantly surprised on this. But why aren't they taking part in already existing union?

[CynicalIdealist]

Dude, workers are workers.

If they are seeking to unionize then they are moving towards trade union consciousness. they arent owners of shareholders. they are retail workers.

Im a retail worker, am i a white liberal yuppie? Or, are they "white liberal yuppies" because of the product they move for the capitalist? If thats the case, im a reactionary redneck healthnut since i sell everything from shoes to tents to firearms and fucking zhu zhu pets and shakeweights.

Sorry, I was referring to Apple fans, not the workers themselves. I should have made myself much more clear...

[wunderbar]

But why aren't they taking part in already existing union?

They seem to be in the very beginning of forming something, so I'm not surprised they haven't joined in with another union (or at least haven't announced they have). The advantage to staying independent for now is that they can be sure that the rank and file control the union and they can engage in unusual tactics (by US standards) such as solidarity unionism. If they choose to join the IWW (or other independent rank and files like WIIU and UE), they can probably keep doing these things, but they likely couldn't if they join a larger top-down union.

[x371322]

Sorry, I was referring to Apple fans, not the workers themselves. I should have made myself much more clear...

I'm annoyed by Apple "fanboyism" as much as the next guy, but this vehement anti-apple attitude among the tech world is just as sickening. The majority of "Apple fans," like most people, are still workers. I own a mac. Two of them. And as of recently an iPhone too. What of it? I'm not allowed to spend my money on something I enjoy without being labeled a "white liberal yuppie?"

Fuck that. :glare:

[CynicalIdealist]

I'm not saying anything is wrong with owning a Mac. Its elitist fans just bug me to death, and the students at my white liberal yuppie college that I attended in Portland tended to own Macs--a really high percentage compared to the attach rate among the general public.

Plus, my post was more intended as tongue-in-cheek humor anyway.

[x371322]

I'm not saying anything is wrong with owning a Mac. Its elitist fans just bug me to death, and the students at my white liberal yuppie college that I attended in Portland tended to own Macs--a really high percentage compared to the attach rate among the general public.

Plus, my post was more intended as tongue-in-cheek humor anyway.

Oh. Then yeah I pretty much agree. :)

[Spawn of Stalin]

Has anyone read the comments on that article?

"Apple Store Workers of The World Unite...
...thats all we need is the communists taking over the Apple stores"

"I hope not."

"Unions are the reason Apple can't afford to manufacture products in America. Nobody can. Look at the UAW. A gang of grade five drop-outs who think they deserve guaranteed lifetime employment at $73.50 and hour to turn a bolt. No wonder GM went belly up! Now that the unions have driven the automotive industry to bankruptcy, they're going to start picking on Apple? To quote Robert Browning: "To the Devil that prompts 'em their treasonous parles!""

"This would be bad. Apple treats it's employees very well. There may be some bad managers out there, but that is not the norm. That's why they have always have far more applicants than openings, even when general unemployment was low. Please don't take a great thing like Apple Retail and ruin it."

"Even if we give the benefit of the doubt that working for Apple is a "nightmare", in the end, who is forcing them to work there? Clearly, if these individuals were capable of better employment they would take it."

:laugh:

[danyboy27]

Has anyone read the comments on that article?

"Apple Store Workers of The World Unite...
...thats all we need is the communists taking over the Apple stores"

"I hope not."

"Unions are the reason Apple can't afford to manufacture products in America. Nobody can. Look at the UAW. A gang of grade five drop-outs who think they deserve guaranteed lifetime employment at $73.50 and hour to turn a bolt. No wonder GM went belly up! Now that the unions have driven the automotive industry to bankruptcy, they're going to start picking on Apple? To quote Robert Browning: "To the Devil that prompts 'em their treasonous parles!""

"This would be bad. Apple treats it's employees very well. There may be some bad managers out there, but that is not the norm. That's why they have always have far more applicants than openings, even when general unemployment was low. Please don't take a great thing like Apple Retail and ruin it."

"Even if we give the benefit of the doubt that working for Apple is a "nightmare", in the end, who is forcing them to work there? Clearly, if these individuals were capable of better employment they would take it."

:laugh:
i often hear that kind of moronic argument and all i can say to them is; yea how dare those people ask for a good living wage? we should be like china and shit.

Worker who hate union only does beccause they dont have a good living wage, and are just fucking jealous that some folks somewhere had the balls to get their shit together to have more respect.

Apple is a fucking scam, the independent store who sell those have a return of only 5% on their profits, their spare part are overpriced, and recently they have been working on making the hd design propritary, wich mean that beccause the hard drive require a special connector, you cant buy the generic cheaper hard drive to upgrade the computer. i wouldnt be surprised that in the future they tweak their machines to make the memory slot propritary has well.

the more the mac brand evolve, the more they are making their owner slave of the mac technical support.

[Reznov]

i work in a computer store so fuck yea. right on!

That doesn't happen to be Geek Squad/Best Buy, does it?

[NoOneIsIllegal]

Solidarity to the Apple workers!

It's funny reading those comments. People tend to think of America as the best nation, and always pride themselves on how Americans make more money and have more liberty than people in China and the far-east. Yet they whine and stomp their feet when people demand better wages and having a voice in the workplace. Aren't they indirectly advocating low-wages and authoritarianism, the exact things they're supposedly rallying against?