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Apple signs union agreement for Glasgow Apple Store staff

130 points by DemiGuru 4y ago

nortonham 4y ago
lets see how long Apple keeps the store open.....
changoplatanero 4y ago
As an Apple investor, I wish that Apple would do more to make working conditions such that the retail employees would be less likely to want to join a union. A large share of the employee grievances will be things not related to pay and could be helped by having ways for the employees in the stores to communicate their needs to corporate.
- Arkanum 4y ago
  I might argue that the issue is not "having ways for the employees in the stores to communicate their needs to corporate.". But rather having corporate act on those needs, and in the face of larger investors like Buffet and Vanguard, who would probably like more to see dividends and share price increases, unions are a good way to balance the scales a bit.
- danpalmer 4y ago
  That's not incompatible with unionisation. Union employees still have company bosses who will hopefully try to make their working environment better for them. What won't change is the employment contract, as that will be negotiated collectively, but those are typically the same for all employees anyway, at least for hourly waged jobs like this. I don't think there's really much of a downside to unionisation here. It's not like one staff member asking to be paid more was ever going to happen being such a small cog in such a big machine.
  - changoplatanero 4y ago
    > I don't think there's really much of a downside to unionisation here. This thread started off from the perspective of an apple investor not a retail employee. As an investor, I think there is a real downside to unionization.
    - mort96 4y ago
      And that real downside is that it affects your stock portfolio. It improves the life of those unionizing, but that has no direct benefit to your bank account, so you wish they'd just accept the low wages, right?
- capableweb 4y ago
  > A large share of the employee grievances will be things not related to pay Might be in other cases, but in this case it's about low pay, and shitty shift patterns: > Reportedly, retail staff at Apple Glasgow earn 12 ($15) per hour. Workers at the store say that low wages, plus unfair shift patterns and a lack of pay transparency have prompted the move toward unionization. https://appleinsider.com/articles/22/06/10/glasgow-apple-store-staff-join-union-ask-apple-to-recognize-it https://appleinsider.com/articles/22/06/10/glasgow-apple-sto... They seem to also have asked for ways to enable better communication to corporate but it seems to have fallen on deaf ears, even their colleagues in other countries have ways but no one listens: > "In the UK, Apple have staff forums, but these are continually shown to be ineffectual and feedback is ignored," one anonymous worker told the Glasgow Evening Times. "It is a one-way conversation." I guess the conclusion is that people tried, Apple didn't want to, so now the workers forced them to listen. I hope workers in other countries are following what's happening here and realize they have more power than what they think.
  - KennyBlanken 4y ago
    In the wake of someone driving an SUV through an Apple store, I saw a LinkedIn post by some VP of retail stores. They were in a position that sounded sort of like they were in an HR-ish, "people management" role. Lots of talk about family, and close knit this, and "it's my job to support them" that. The usual self-righteous linkedin bullshit, but unusually brazen given someone was killed and a couple people injured. I remember thinking "if they're so 'supported' by one of the world's richest companies, why do so many of them want to unionize?" $15/hour for high-end retail is peanuts in almost any urban area. Given how much cash Apple has, and how fast they continue to accumulate it, they can absolutely afford to pay a livable wage to their retail employees.
    - skippyboxedhero 4y ago
      $15/hour in Glasgow in retail is good. That is £19k/year net. The minimum wage in the UK is ~£9.50, and a lot of people in retail will be on substantially less (because the rate varies by age). You may not know a lot about Glasgow either, it isn't like "any urban area". It is one of the poorest places in the UK, massive opioid problem, lowest life expectancy in the UK (in the poorest areas), derelict housing everywhere, highest rate of refugees per capita, high levels of violent crime (amazingly, this has got substantially better and it is still terrible by the metric of anyone familiar with crime in other countries)...the only big employers are govt and retail, this compares well with low-skill govt work. You cannot compare this to any city in the US either, maybe Detroit or somewhere? But the US is just another world relative to Europe (Glasgow is more like somewhere like rural West Virginia...but a city).
- Gordonjcp 4y ago
  Why would you not want the employees to join a union?
  - Melatonic 4y ago
    Theoretically if we had perfect labor laws and companies had a profit motive to keep their employees happy then Unionization might not be necessary (and could create additional overhead). But this is a VERY idealistic scenario. I say this as someone who is very pro union.
- Melatonic 4y ago
  It pretty much always comes down to pay (assuming there are not dangerous working conditions). People will say things like "too many hours" but you know what? If you pay a shitload for those then generally people (or at least some of them) will be okay with the overtime.
- maxsilver 4y ago
  > As an Apple investor, (things) could be helped by having ways for the employees in the stores to communicate their needs. (snip) A large share of the employee grievances will be things not related to pay They've already communicated their needs (wages are too low), and you've already dismissed their concerns. Your comment here is kind of proving exactly why Apple employees so desperately need to unionize -- they aren't going to get fairer wages any other way.
doublepg23 4y ago
It’s interesting seeing unionization back on the table in the 2020s. I worked at a union retail job for three years and saw the pros and cons firsthand. We had a problem employee who was untouchable regardless if he was completing his job duties (assuming he showed up at all). Eventually this came to a head as he would spend 30min+ in the restroom. To address this they instituted a “log all bathroom breaks” policy _for everyone_ which caused the employee to not show up again. However, the company kept the policy in place for weeks until I sent a strongly worded email to the union rep (who was unaware he was overseeing our store). He made a visit the next day and the policy was promptly changed. So while I was glad to have a Union to override such policies I do wonder if the problem employee would have been around for so long without it.
- capableweb 4y ago
  Usually union employees can be fired if there is "just cause". Not showing up for work at all would definitely to considered "just cause" for most unions I've been involved in. Did no one even try to fire him or was he related to someone in a management position? Being in a union doesn't mean you're "untouchable", it just means you can't be fired without hard proof that the worker is not doing what they are hired to do.
  - big_oof2023 4y ago
    This may be the intent of the rules/contract. But real world stories and experience show that unions tend to make bad employees untouchable, to the detriment of their fellow union members. And I say this as someone who generally supports unionization (but not necessarily the union management beast)
    - doublepg23 4y ago
      Having worked in non-Union and Union retail for that long I’m still on the fence. I’d probably lean Union but at the same time it really isn’t propaganda that there are downsides.
  - IMTDb 4y ago
AceJohnny2 4y ago
Looking forward to the headlines of Apple taunting the Glasgow staff by offering benefits to other stores but not them, with the defense that the new benefits aren't part of the Glasgow agreement.
- Gordonjcp 4y ago
  You might want to look into Glasgow's history with the trade unions. When it comes to things like this, Glasgow is the epitome of "fuck around and find out".
  - ChuckNorris89 4y ago
    >Glasgow is the epitome of "fuck around and find out" As a non-UK-an, can I ask what happened?
    - Gordonjcp 4y ago
      https://electricscotland.com/history/union/chapter20.htm https://electricscotland.com/history/union/chapter20.htm https://www.cambridge.org/core/services/aop-cambridge-core/content/view/7147E641A6DBDF55C8470264DEEE124B/S0020859008003441a.pdf/the-1911-waterfront-strikes-in-glasgow-trade-unions-and-rank-and-file-militancy-in-the-labour-unrest-of-1910a1914.pdf https://www.cambridge.org/core/services/aop-cambridge-core/c... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_Clydeside https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_Clydeside https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mary_Barbour https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mary_Barbour and more recently, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nae_Pasaran https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nae_Pasaran You should watch that last one, when you get a chance. Edit: In the mid-1980s when South African Apartheid was a matter of global protest, Glasgow City Council renamed St George's Place in the centre of Glasgow to Nelson Mandela Place, just to mess with the South African Consulate. Glasgow is a wonderful city full of wonderful people, but don't piss them off.
  - skippyboxedhero 4y ago
    The "find out" bit being finding out that you have no economy. The store is in the centre of Glasgow, by 2030 almost all of that area will be residential. Almost all the manufacturing jobs have gone. Docks have gone. Everything is gone. Govt and retail were the only major employers, retail is now going too (employee density of places outside the city is a fraction of what is was). This is stupid, the pay is fine for what it is, and Apple can and will just close the store. Btw, my family is from Glasgow, one of my relatives was a Red Clydeside leader, the labour movement today is worlds away from what it was then. All the old trade unionists began moving away in the 60s. Middle-class people moved in seeking the status of a working-class movement, needless confrontation ramped up, and the leaders lost all their member's jobs. Glasgow is one of the purest cautionary tales about the dangers of unions (and, to be clear, this was never a question for the early union leaders...unions were supposed to be about collaboration, not confrontation, all the countries in Europe that have collaborative unions have workers in industry, all the ones that had confrontational unions don't...it is that simple).
Melatonic 4y ago
Big companies are now so large that they can influence policy and politicians in a way that it is impossible for the individual to fight back. If only there was a way for us to get together...as people...to unite as a group. To hold hands and stand up for ourselves. To become so large that the corporations and politicians must notice us and must change. Fucking Union!
- gruez 4y ago
  >If only there was a way for us to get together...as people...to unite as a group. To hold hands and stand up for ourselves. To become so large that the corporations and politicians must notice us and must change. Isn't that what the state is? It has all of that, plus a monopoly on violence, which a union doesn't have.
  - Xeoncross 4y ago
    No, remember we're anti-local government. We want a massive centralized federal government that is to large to care about the peasants in a certain state.
    - Apocryphon 4y ago
      At the same time, what is any local government going to do to Apple?
      - Xeoncross 4y ago
        The same thing the union just did and more.
    - tdeck 4y ago
      When gruez says "the state" they're talking mainly about countries and governments in general, not specifically about US states.
  - TaylorAlexander 4y ago
    A union more directly puts power in to the hands of workers than does the state.
nfriedly 4y ago
I really like the German system where employees get representation (usually union reps) on the board of the company - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Codetermination_in_Germany https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Codetermination_in_Germany - I think it helps bring a lot more balance to business decisions.
- nebula8804 4y ago
  But then at the same time you have something like Volkswagen who just fired their CEO that was pushing hard into EVs. The inertia of the old ICE portion of the company (including the union people who may lose their jobs) just puts a hamper on their speed of execution which shouldn't be the case since incentives are generally aligned. If the company succeeds then the employees + union succeed as well. In this case it seems like they want to hold on to the old way of doing things as long as they can but I don't know what their game plan is going to be once reality comes knocking? It makes me wonder, can unionized shops survive when some fast moving competitors(eg. Tesla) are not unionized?
  - gcr 4y ago
    Tesla isn't exactly a fast-moving competitor. Musk has been saying full self-driving is coming "any day now" for at least six years and counting¹, but Tesla's own lawyers say it's still largely vaporware². Meanwhile, other EV manufacturers like Mercedes-Benz are handily outpacing Tesla in both functionality³ and legal responsibility⁴ toward the driver. Consumer Reports rated Cadillac's self-driving system higher than Tesla two years ago now.⁵ I'd say Tesla's the one dragging their feet here. [1]: For more on Musk's SAE level 5 timeline predictions, see https://arstechnica.com/cars/2021/05/tesla-autopilot-director-contradicts-musks-self-driving-timeline/ https://arstechnica.com/cars/2021/05/tesla-autopilot-directo... [2]: Tesla says full-self driving is "failure, not fraud" https://www.latimes.com/business/story/2022-12-08/tesla-lawsuit-full-self-driving-technology-failure-not-fraud https://www.latimes.com/business/story/2022-12-08/tesla-laws... [3]: Mercedes-Benz claims their driving pilot system is already SAE level 3: https://gizmodo.com/mercedes-benz-tesla-autonomous-driving-driver-pilot-1850047723 https://gizmodo.com/mercedes-benz-tesla-autonomous-driving-d... [4]: Mercedes-Benz is so confident about this in fact that they're even willing to accept legal liability for accidents while their system is active: https://insideevs.com/news/575160/mercedes-accepts-legal-responsibility-drive-pilot/ https://insideevs.com/news/575160/mercedes-accepts-legal-res... [5]: Consumer Reports compares FSD systems: https://www.consumerreports.org/car-safety/cadillac-super-cruise-outperforms-other-active-driving-assistance-systems/ https://www.consumerreports.org/car-safety/cadillac-super-cr...

130 points by DemiGuru 4y ago

lets see how long Apple keeps the store open.....

As an Apple investor, I wish that Apple would do more to make working conditions such that the retail employees would be less likely to want to join a union. A large share of the employee grievances will be things not related to pay and could be helped by having ways for the employees in the stores to communicate their needs to corporate.

Arkanum 4y ago
I might argue that the issue is not "having ways for the employees in the stores to communicate their needs to corporate.". But rather having corporate act on those needs, and in the face of larger investors like Buffet and Vanguard, who would probably like more to see dividends and share price increases, unions are a good way to balance the scales a bit.
danpalmer 4y ago
That's not incompatible with unionisation. Union employees still have company bosses who will hopefully try to make their working environment better for them. What won't change is the employment contract, as that will be negotiated collectively, but those are typically the same for all employees anyway, at least for hourly waged jobs like this. I don't think there's really much of a downside to unionisation here. It's not like one staff member asking to be paid more was ever going to happen being such a small cog in such a big machine.
- changoplatanero 4y ago
  > I don't think there's really much of a downside to unionisation here. This thread started off from the perspective of an apple investor not a retail employee. As an investor, I think there is a real downside to unionization.
  - mort96 4y ago
    And that real downside is that it affects your stock portfolio. It improves the life of those unionizing, but that has no direct benefit to your bank account, so you wish they'd just accept the low wages, right?
capableweb 4y ago
> A large share of the employee grievances will be things not related to pay Might be in other cases, but in this case it's about low pay, and shitty shift patterns: > Reportedly, retail staff at Apple Glasgow earn 12 ($15) per hour. Workers at the store say that low wages, plus unfair shift patterns and a lack of pay transparency have prompted the move toward unionization. https://appleinsider.com/articles/22/06/10/glasgow-apple-store-staff-join-union-ask-apple-to-recognize-it https://appleinsider.com/articles/22/06/10/glasgow-apple-sto... They seem to also have asked for ways to enable better communication to corporate but it seems to have fallen on deaf ears, even their colleagues in other countries have ways but no one listens: > "In the UK, Apple have staff forums, but these are continually shown to be ineffectual and feedback is ignored," one anonymous worker told the Glasgow Evening Times. "It is a one-way conversation." I guess the conclusion is that people tried, Apple didn't want to, so now the workers forced them to listen. I hope workers in other countries are following what's happening here and realize they have more power than what they think.
- KennyBlanken 4y ago
  In the wake of someone driving an SUV through an Apple store, I saw a LinkedIn post by some VP of retail stores. They were in a position that sounded sort of like they were in an HR-ish, "people management" role. Lots of talk about family, and close knit this, and "it's my job to support them" that. The usual self-righteous linkedin bullshit, but unusually brazen given someone was killed and a couple people injured. I remember thinking "if they're so 'supported' by one of the world's richest companies, why do so many of them want to unionize?" $15/hour for high-end retail is peanuts in almost any urban area. Given how much cash Apple has, and how fast they continue to accumulate it, they can absolutely afford to pay a livable wage to their retail employees.
  - skippyboxedhero 4y ago
    $15/hour in Glasgow in retail is good. That is £19k/year net. The minimum wage in the UK is ~£9.50, and a lot of people in retail will be on substantially less (because the rate varies by age). You may not know a lot about Glasgow either, it isn't like "any urban area". It is one of the poorest places in the UK, massive opioid problem, lowest life expectancy in the UK (in the poorest areas), derelict housing everywhere, highest rate of refugees per capita, high levels of violent crime (amazingly, this has got substantially better and it is still terrible by the metric of anyone familiar with crime in other countries)...the only big employers are govt and retail, this compares well with low-skill govt work. You cannot compare this to any city in the US either, maybe Detroit or somewhere? But the US is just another world relative to Europe (Glasgow is more like somewhere like rural West Virginia...but a city).
Gordonjcp 4y ago
Why would you not want the employees to join a union?
- Melatonic 4y ago
  Theoretically if we had perfect labor laws and companies had a profit motive to keep their employees happy then Unionization might not be necessary (and could create additional overhead). But this is a VERY idealistic scenario. I say this as someone who is very pro union.
Melatonic 4y ago
It pretty much always comes down to pay (assuming there are not dangerous working conditions). People will say things like "too many hours" but you know what? If you pay a shitload for those then generally people (or at least some of them) will be okay with the overtime.
maxsilver 4y ago
> As an Apple investor, (things) could be helped by having ways for the employees in the stores to communicate their needs. (snip) A large share of the employee grievances will be things not related to pay They've already communicated their needs (wages are too low), and you've already dismissed their concerns. Your comment here is kind of proving exactly why Apple employees so desperately need to unionize -- they aren't going to get fairer wages any other way.

doublepg23 4y ago

It’s interesting seeing unionization back on the table in the 2020s. I worked at a union retail job for three years and saw the pros and cons firsthand. We had a problem employee who was untouchable regardless if he was completing his job duties (assuming he showed up at all). Eventually this came to a head as he would spend 30min+ in the restroom. To address this they instituted a “log all bathroom breaks” policy _for everyone_ which caused the employee to not show up again. However, the company kept the policy in place for weeks until I sent a strongly worded email to the union rep (who was unaware he was overseeing our store). He made a visit the next day and the policy was promptly changed. So while I was glad to have a Union to override such policies I do wonder if the problem employee would have been around for so long without it.

capableweb 4y ago
Usually union employees can be fired if there is "just cause". Not showing up for work at all would definitely to considered "just cause" for most unions I've been involved in. Did no one even try to fire him or was he related to someone in a management position? Being in a union doesn't mean you're "untouchable", it just means you can't be fired without hard proof that the worker is not doing what they are hired to do.
- big_oof2023 4y ago
  This may be the intent of the rules/contract. But real world stories and experience show that unions tend to make bad employees untouchable, to the detriment of their fellow union members. And I say this as someone who generally supports unionization (but not necessarily the union management beast)
  - doublepg23 4y ago
    Having worked in non-Union and Union retail for that long I’m still on the fence. I’d probably lean Union but at the same time it really isn’t propaganda that there are downsides.
- IMTDb 4y ago

AceJohnny2 4y ago

Looking forward to the headlines of Apple taunting the Glasgow staff by offering benefits to other stores but not them, with the defense that the new benefits aren't part of the Glasgow agreement.

Gordonjcp 4y ago
You might want to look into Glasgow's history with the trade unions. When it comes to things like this, Glasgow is the epitome of "fuck around and find out".
- ChuckNorris89 4y ago
  >Glasgow is the epitome of "fuck around and find out" As a non-UK-an, can I ask what happened?
  - Gordonjcp 4y ago
    https://electricscotland.com/history/union/chapter20.htm https://electricscotland.com/history/union/chapter20.htm https://www.cambridge.org/core/services/aop-cambridge-core/content/view/7147E641A6DBDF55C8470264DEEE124B/S0020859008003441a.pdf/the-1911-waterfront-strikes-in-glasgow-trade-unions-and-rank-and-file-militancy-in-the-labour-unrest-of-1910a1914.pdf https://www.cambridge.org/core/services/aop-cambridge-core/c... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_Clydeside https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_Clydeside https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mary_Barbour https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mary_Barbour and more recently, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nae_Pasaran https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nae_Pasaran You should watch that last one, when you get a chance. Edit: In the mid-1980s when South African Apartheid was a matter of global protest, Glasgow City Council renamed St George's Place in the centre of Glasgow to Nelson Mandela Place, just to mess with the South African Consulate. Glasgow is a wonderful city full of wonderful people, but don't piss them off.
- skippyboxedhero 4y ago
  The "find out" bit being finding out that you have no economy. The store is in the centre of Glasgow, by 2030 almost all of that area will be residential. Almost all the manufacturing jobs have gone. Docks have gone. Everything is gone. Govt and retail were the only major employers, retail is now going too (employee density of places outside the city is a fraction of what is was). This is stupid, the pay is fine for what it is, and Apple can and will just close the store. Btw, my family is from Glasgow, one of my relatives was a Red Clydeside leader, the labour movement today is worlds away from what it was then. All the old trade unionists began moving away in the 60s. Middle-class people moved in seeking the status of a working-class movement, needless confrontation ramped up, and the leaders lost all their member's jobs. Glasgow is one of the purest cautionary tales about the dangers of unions (and, to be clear, this was never a question for the early union leaders...unions were supposed to be about collaboration, not confrontation, all the countries in Europe that have collaborative unions have workers in industry, all the ones that had confrontational unions don't...it is that simple).

Melatonic 4y ago

Big companies are now so large that they can influence policy and politicians in a way that it is impossible for the individual to fight back. If only there was a way for us to get together...as people...to unite as a group. To hold hands and stand up for ourselves. To become so large that the corporations and politicians must notice us and must change. Fucking Union!

gruez 4y ago
>If only there was a way for us to get together...as people...to unite as a group. To hold hands and stand up for ourselves. To become so large that the corporations and politicians must notice us and must change. Isn't that what the state is? It has all of that, plus a monopoly on violence, which a union doesn't have.
- Xeoncross 4y ago
  No, remember we're anti-local government. We want a massive centralized federal government that is to large to care about the peasants in a certain state.
  - Apocryphon 4y ago
    At the same time, what is any local government going to do to Apple?
    - Xeoncross 4y ago
      The same thing the union just did and more.
  - tdeck 4y ago
    When gruez says "the state" they're talking mainly about countries and governments in general, not specifically about US states.
- TaylorAlexander 4y ago
  A union more directly puts power in to the hands of workers than does the state.

nfriedly 4y ago

I really like the German system where employees get representation (usually union reps) on the board of the company - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Codetermination_in_Germany https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Codetermination_in_Germany - I think it helps bring a lot more balance to business decisions.

nebula8804 4y ago
But then at the same time you have something like Volkswagen who just fired their CEO that was pushing hard into EVs. The inertia of the old ICE portion of the company (including the union people who may lose their jobs) just puts a hamper on their speed of execution which shouldn't be the case since incentives are generally aligned. If the company succeeds then the employees + union succeed as well. In this case it seems like they want to hold on to the old way of doing things as long as they can but I don't know what their game plan is going to be once reality comes knocking? It makes me wonder, can unionized shops survive when some fast moving competitors(eg. Tesla) are not unionized?
- gcr 4y ago
  Tesla isn't exactly a fast-moving competitor. Musk has been saying full self-driving is coming "any day now" for at least six years and counting¹, but Tesla's own lawyers say it's still largely vaporware². Meanwhile, other EV manufacturers like Mercedes-Benz are handily outpacing Tesla in both functionality³ and legal responsibility⁴ toward the driver. Consumer Reports rated Cadillac's self-driving system higher than Tesla two years ago now.⁵ I'd say Tesla's the one dragging their feet here. [1]: For more on Musk's SAE level 5 timeline predictions, see https://arstechnica.com/cars/2021/05/tesla-autopilot-director-contradicts-musks-self-driving-timeline/ https://arstechnica.com/cars/2021/05/tesla-autopilot-directo... [2]: Tesla says full-self driving is "failure, not fraud" https://www.latimes.com/business/story/2022-12-08/tesla-lawsuit-full-self-driving-technology-failure-not-fraud https://www.latimes.com/business/story/2022-12-08/tesla-laws... [3]: Mercedes-Benz claims their driving pilot system is already SAE level 3: https://gizmodo.com/mercedes-benz-tesla-autonomous-driving-driver-pilot-1850047723 https://gizmodo.com/mercedes-benz-tesla-autonomous-driving-d... [4]: Mercedes-Benz is so confident about this in fact that they're even willing to accept legal liability for accidents while their system is active: https://insideevs.com/news/575160/mercedes-accepts-legal-responsibility-drive-pilot/ https://insideevs.com/news/575160/mercedes-accepts-legal-res... [5]: Consumer Reports compares FSD systems: https://www.consumerreports.org/car-safety/cadillac-super-cruise-outperforms-other-active-driving-assistance-systems/ https://www.consumerreports.org/car-safety/cadillac-super-cr...