Apple Finalizes First Retail Union Contract With Maryland Store

[NT1440]

Start your own company, hire thousands, pay people $50/hr and show these companies how it should be done.

Human dignity is more important to me than the religious adherence to an exploitative economic model.

That’s all you guys need to know about my thoughts, before I get yet another warning from the mods for responding to topics brought up that are “political” in nature.

I’m going back to work, have fun guys.

 

[nt5672]

Unions are only needed when companies take advantage of workers. I would say Cook's (and other manager's) salaries compared to Apple retail employee's salaries mean that Apple is taking advantage. Now we just need to wait and find out if the union is bought and paid for by Apple. The one I was in, was. The union turned out to just be a smoke screen for lower wages.

 

[icanhazmac]

If a business can't afford to pay a decent wage, they are a bad business idea and deserve to fail; restaurants included.

LOL.

Using fast food as a point of reference, these restaurants have functioned at a happy medium for a very long time. They provided minimum wage, low skill jobs that served as first jobs for teens and part time positions for adults that were supplementing their household incomes. At the same time they provided the service of reasonably priced food that could be obtained quickly. Salaries ebbed and flowed with the labor markets in a balance of sorts.

Fast forward to today. Outside forces now artificially increase wages to the mythical "living" level, now the contributions of the low skill labor are far outweighed by their wage and they have become a liability. This drives the search for alternatives in the form of automations.

The fast food minimum wage effect: higher prices, reduced hours

The Employment Policies Institute surveyed restaurants in California to understand the economic impact the fast food minimum wage law has had on the industry.

www.foxbusiness.com

Walk into a McDs today and you end up standing there for a minute or 3 until someone notices you standing at the register waiting to order, I refuse to use the kiosk so I end up waiting and mad about it. I also despise self-checkouts and largely refuse to use them... I guess in my own way I am supporting the working man!

You should only ever get paid an amount that balances with your contribution. Once you make more than you are worth you will be eliminated.

Unions only exacerbate the issue.

 

[Plutonius]

Not to say the wage increases are not deserved but companies pay for wage increases with higher prices.

In the short run people are making more money but in the long run they are making less because the prices are higher everywhere.

 

[citysnaps]

$37 per employee. He provided a stable environment for 160,000 people to have jobs.

Yes, a huge hat-tip to Tim Cook.

During the pandemic years where most tech companies (Meta, google, Qualcomm, Microsoft, Nokia, LinkedIn, Tesla, Amazon, T-Mobile, Cisco, PayPal, eBay, Spotify, Salesforce, etc) had mass layoffs of thousands of employees, Apple had none. Without a union.

 

[CapitalIdea]

Huh? Did you just confuse me with some other conversation you were already having?

Ah, correct. You interjected in another conversation. Therefore, only the second half of my post applies to you.

 

[minik]

On the side note, I remember that OG 15-inch retina MacBook Pro in 2012.

 

[SBlue1]

And the extra costs they incur because of this will be passed on to their customers.

As it should. Nobody should have two jobs or rely on tips to survive.

 

[thebeans]

Where as Tim's 40 to 80 million annual take home or the 400K+ annual of other exectutives at Apple are presumably not reflected at all in the cost of Apple products we purchase. Its just the hourly workers that work retail that are the problem. If you are concerned about the bottom line, ask Tim to take 1 million off his pay annualy and give it to everyone who is an employee at an Apple store and then every store member can have a decent payrise with no impact on the customer.

While I agree many top executives are way overpaid, Tim donating $1 million a year would give each employee a raise of a little over $6 PER YEAR. Not exactly life changing.

 

[anthogag]

Unions are usually much better for employees. In my experience, non-union work environments usually treat employees like numbers in a spreadsheet.

 

[dominiongamma]

It's a retail job LOL

Serving the worst people sadly, a job is a job for some people

 

[profcutter]

Great news and I’m glad to see it. Congratulations to the employees.

 

[I7guy]

Where did I ever make that point? Of course they are passed on, just like everything else. Cook is massively overpaid (like most CEOs) and we are paying for it.

Who is we?

 

[Unregistered 4U]

If a business can't afford to pay a decent wage, they are a bad business idea and deserve to fail; restaurants included. Wages are being artificially deflated, not inflated, for the shareholders. I'm a shareholder, and still think it's crap.

And, for restaurants particularly, food is the biggest variable cost. If they’re going under, it’s more likely because of the skyrocketing price of food than it is for the predictable cost of wage increases.

 

[Unregistered 4U]

Unions are only needed when companies take advantage of workers. I would say Cook's (and other manager's) salaries compared to Apple retail employee's salaries mean that Apple is taking advantage.

Wouldn’t it be more instructive if the Apple retail employee’s salary was compared to other retail employee salaries in the local region where the Apple retail employee worked? Because if a poor comparison against the income of the CEO of a company defines “taking advantage”, then almost every company today is “taking advantage”, even when employees are making 6 figures.

 

[Unregistered 4U]

Yes, a huge hat-tip to Tim Cook.

During the pandemic years where most tech companies (Meta, google, Qualcomm, Microsoft, Nokia, LinkedIn, Tesla, Amazon, T-Mobile, Cisco, PayPal, eBay, Spotify, Salesforce, etc) had mass layoffs of thousands of employees, Apple had none. Without a union.

Not only that, they continued to pay them via giving them work to do from home.

 

[breather]

Unions ❤️

 

[gleepskip]

Unions ❤️

Union bosses making bank thank you for your support.

 

[CapitalIdea]

Wouldn’t it be more instructive if the Apple retail employee’s salary was compared to other retail employee salaries in the local region where the Apple retail employee worked? Because if a poor comparison against the income of the CEO of a company defines “taking advantage”, then almost every company today is “taking advantage”, even when employees are making 6 figures.

Exactly. Call me old fashioned, but perhaps people who work in a store should not make as much as someone who is an advanced chip designer who spent half a decade learning how to do such things via intensive education and the sacrifice of their social lives. It's just as bad as when some clerk at a gas station complains that a doctor or veterinarian charges money for their services.

 

[NagasakiGG]

How can employees be against unions? wtf?
Typical Americans.

 

[Timpetus]

How can employees be against unions? wtf?
Typical Americans.

How typical of us to see the big picture. Unions convert individuals into interchangeable units of labor in a big blob. Instead of getting and maintaining a good job by working hard to learn useful skills, you can just barely scrape by into a union job. Now you are incentivized to do the bare minimum not to get fired, which is a much lower bar with union protection. Going above and beyond is pointless when the union sets the most you can ever be paid in your position.

Short term, unions can help a select few people. Long term, they hurt everyone, even those initially helped. People will always respond to incentives.

 

[nt5672]

Wouldn’t it be more instructive if the Apple retail employee’s salary was compared to other retail employee salaries in the local region where the Apple retail employee worked? Because if a poor comparison against the income of the CEO of a company defines “taking advantage”, then almost every company today is “taking advantage”, even when employees are making 6 figures.

Yes, a balance of both is probably good. But I would rather my outrageous cost for Apple devices get a better distribution across all employees, rather than all going to management, which in my opinion, is not doing anything worth their compensation.

 

[gleepskip]

Yes, a balance of both is probably good. But I would rather my outrageous cost for Apple devices get a better distribution across all employees, rather than all going to management, which in my opinion, is not doing anything worth their compensation.

Timmy's comp was $63 million last year. If you split that evenly across the 160k workforce, everyone would get $32 extra per month. What a windfall.

 

[Iconoclysm]

Didn't expect Apple to do this, but its nice to see that they are. What company is next in line to surprise the world with a similar move? Tesla?

Apple doing this is not a shocker. Tesla's CEO is at war all over Europe because he will not recognize unions, so that would be a surprise.

 

[I7guy]

Yes, a balance of both is probably good. But I would rather my outrageous cost for Apple devices get a better distribution across all employees, rather than all going to management, which in my opinion, is not doing anything worth their compensation.

If management is doing much to earn their wage, why buy apple products?