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Apple has reached its first-ever union contract with store employees in Maryland
- lolinder 2y ago> The International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers’ Coalition of Organized Retail Employees, which represents the employees ... I've never understood how employees choose unions when they form new arrangements like this. Does someone more familiar with the process have any insight into why the names of the unions that get selected in these votes never seem to bear any relationship to the work being unionized?
- emseetech 2y agoIt's more about which unions are willing to represent them. Sometimes it makes for strange bedfellows and sometimes it results in inter-union competition, but there are no strict laws on who can represent who as far as I know. Some unions are more willing to take on an underdog, whereas others only get involved if it feels like a sure thing. Sometimes a union will support a drive if it specifically strengthens their position (like an adjacent industry). And some industries like fast food the big unions feel are a lost cause, so most union activity there is independent.
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- AndrewKemendo 2y agoThink about it like finding an investor. There are a lot of unions and some are more similar to an organizing contract style than others to the groups organizing. Others may not have the capacity or ability to help in larger cases like these. It’s less formal than you might assume
- freeone3000 2y agoFew unions survived union-busting in the 80s, and pretty much no new unions formed. Between this and the hollowing out of the unionized trades in the US, we’re down to autoworkers, machinists, boilermakers, teamsters, and a few others as large unions able to help new shops unionize.
- brcmthrowaway 2y agoGlaziers have their own union
- wlesieutre 2y agoIBEW (electrical workers) is another
- SoftTalker 2y agoIronworkers, pipefitters/steamfitters, airline pilots, there are still a number of trade-specific unions.
- dhosek 2y agoSEIU—service employees—is not insignificant. When I was involved with unionizing TAs at UIC in the 00s, we organized as an SEIU union.
- knowaveragejoe 2y agoNABTU is a large umbrella organization encompassing a lot of these.
- Sn0wCoder 2y agoDouglas J. McCarron head of the Carpenters Union Las Vegas, they own the most expensive piece of property in the USA (or thought to be) right across from the White House. The carpenters also do welders, carpet layers, ceiling tile, and a few others. Mostly in the upper US, as the south is known for being right to work. Some government contracts will pay prevailing wages even to non-union workers to make the bids fair.
- PlattypusRex 2y agoOld unions like this one that were originally more specific to a trade can and do attempt to expand and cover any type of trade if they want to. They also absorb (merge with) smaller unions all the time, even if the original name has nothing to do with the trade union they merged with. The end goal of international unions is to unionize most major trades, hence the concept of a general strike, to increase the bargaining power of the entire working class collectively across trades.
- vasco 2y agoLate stage unionization.
- nativeit 2y agoThere are several flavors of labor unions. Some represent entire industries, but in this case they are joining a federation of smaller unions that are company specific. So the titular IAM is more like a parent company, or franchise, and to an extent it can get somewhat arbitrary, but generally if there’s a union that already represents a similar industry as one’s own, that’s usually the one to choose, as they will have an established base of members, relevant expertise for preparing for a vote and negotiating contracts. Even for somewhat novel professions, there’s generally going to be a similar analog to start with. The nominal profession(s) (in this case, machinists) were simply the O.G. industry that kicked it all off back in the day. The IAM is part of the AFL-CIO, and represents more than 200 industries in North America according to Wikipedia. A labor union does what it says on the label, and represents a unified coalition of workers. Most of these kinds of unions have been around for far longer than even some of the industries they represent. The United Electrical, Radio & Machine Workers of America also represents teachers, clerical workers, hospital workers, and railroad operators. Their power is derived from their numbers, and their reach is increased with a diversified pool of industries. They are incentivized to develop branches and provide a big tent in order to grow their influence and power. As long as the members’ interests are aligned, the specific jobs they occupy aren’t strictly relevant, however there needs to be some level of commonality in order to provide them with a meaningful amount of leverage during contract negotiations. If the organization is too untethered between industries, then things like labor strikes won’t carry the intended message very effectively. —- Note: I am not a union official, or even a member, and this is entirely based on my own (possibly flawed) understanding as a history and poli-sci enthusiast. Take it with the requisite grain of salt.
- Taikonerd 2y agoWhat you said makes sense. But I feel like representing lots of mostly-unrelated industries is a weakness, too? Like, imagine you're a teacher and you're on strike because of conditions at some steel mill you've never heard of. You want to support your fellow workers... but also, you're forfeiting your income for a cause that's not yours, for people you don't know.
- Atotalnoob 2y ago
- josuepeq 2y agoEvery Apple Store has a Genius Room, which repairs everything Apple makes. This union sort of makes sense. It can get quite sophisticated as all stores are specialized and trained to make these repairs, including Geniuses getting trained on much of the same equipment as an iPhone assembly line, (plus the equipment to do the reverse) including test and validation equipment. I have worked at flagships in top tier cities, down to the smallest mall stores in a market that has exactly one store, the job is exactly the same. These jobs don’t require engineering degrees, but at least for Genius they require quite a bit of training, not so dissimilar from trades. It’s been quite a few years since I’ve been there but used to be if one is promoted up to Genius they will be certified to do repairs. If one fails training and cannot get their Apple Technician Certification, they’re demoted or fired.
- 8note 2y agoA benefit to getting into such a union is that other workers can put pressure on your managers via different mechanisms. If your manufacturing job could be outsourced, you'll want the teamsters to refuse to unload the outsourced versions of the widgets off the boat
- dj_gitmo 2y agoGood for them. It takes a lot courage and organization to stand up against a giant like Apple, especially when they could shut down the entire store.
- daft_pink 2y ago[flagged]
- vkou 2y agoThe most common union disaster is the employer suddenly and without warning deciding to shutter the location that unionized, usually citing 'crime'.
- knowaveragejoe 2y agoIs that actually the most common?
- dmix 2y agoMy father in law ran a decent electrians business and the employees unionized and the costs destroyed his business. He ended up returning to be a tradesman despite being in his 50s as he took debt to keep it afloat and the employees now work non-unionized at the only other electrician business in town with a worse boss (according to friends I know in town disconnected from the drama). That's usually the most common disaster.
- vkou 2y agoIf a business is 'destroyed' by rising prices of its inputs, we generally don't blame the vendors. Cost of labour went up, it's up to the business to adapt.
- burnerthrow008 2y agoSounds like it did adapt. It did the rational thing of ceasing to exist (taking all the jobs with it).
- vkou 2y agoAnd unless people in that town stopped using electricity, all of those jobs didn't disappear, they were recreated at the next shop over. I doubt the uncle in this story was John Galt, or some other fantasy superhero.
- jmyeet 2y agoThe fact that companies tell you that you don't need a union and they'll spend millions to union-bust or to avoid union certification should tell you everything you need to know: vote "yes" to the union if it comes up in your workplace and join. The company is not your friend. Just compare earnings by workers at the Big 3 who are represented by the UAW and Tesla workers who are non-unionized [1]. [1]: https://www.businessinsider.com/ford-gm-stellantis-pay-raise-uaw-contract-tesla-labor-costs-2023-10 https://www.businessinsider.com/ford-gm-stellantis-pay-raise...
- lolinder 2y ago> The fact that companies tell you that you don't need a union and they'll spend millions to union-bust or to avoid union certification should tell you everything you need to know: vote "yes" to the union if it comes up in your workplace and join. This isn't entirely logical. Companies also spend millions to fight off patent trolls, but that doesn't naturally lead to the conclusion that you should team up with the trolls or that patent law doesn't need to be reformed after all. Something can be bad for you and bad for the company, so evidence of harm to the company is not sufficient to prove benefit to you. Personally (speaking as a software engineer), if unionization is ever raised my plan is to look into all the details of the plan and weigh my options. I'm disinclined to trust any claim that something is always good or always bad, so I take the pro-union propaganda with the same salt as the anti-.
- nielsbot 2y agoAll your analogy says is there are 2 sides to every fight. in the co-vs-union case, one of those sides is the company’s employees (you). That means the company’s interests are opposite to yours when they fight unionization. You might be skeptical of the union side, but the company is doing whatever will let them pay you less and/or exert more undemocratic control over you.
- matrix87 2y ago> will let them pay you less and/or exert more undemocratic control over you. the latter isn't necessarily bad for the worker, e.g. if a tech union tries to force divestment from Israel if more money for workers is involved, sure, I'm with you. but I kind of doubt it. If the (tech) union spends more effort pushing political things unrelated to money, best of luck to them. for unions outside of tech, this seems like less of an issue
- guywithahat 2y agoThis is a single retail location in Maryland. There's probably a reason they let them unionize without a lot of fighting, and I'm guessing it's because they will shut the store down if the union becomes a problem. I know this site is pretty pro-union, but if I were them I would not have wanted to unionize at all. Apple has decent salaries for what it is, and it's probably cheaper to close the store than hire a McKinsey consultant to renegotiate union contracts.
- tadfisher 2y agoAt this size, shuttering a store in retaliation for unionizing should result in the corporate death penalty. If Apple doesn't want to deal with unions, then they can feel free to make the point moot, by giving their employees an ownership stake in the company.
- AnthonyMouse 2y agoSo if a company is about to close an underperforming store and the employees get wind of it, all they have to do is sign union cards and the company has to keep the store open forever?
- ajkjk 2y agoNo? That's not what the person you're replying to said, nor what they meant, nor is it a logical implication of what they said.
- AnthonyMouse 2y ago[flagged]
- g15jv2dp 2y ago> But that's just pointless because there are a thousand other reasons they might want to close the store and there is no way to prove it That's the exact point where your argument breaks down. It is possible, sometimes, to prove that a company closed a store because of a union. See the recent Starbucks trial. In the end, they were only saved by the SCOTUS, who isn't exactly uncontroversial at the moment.
- g15jv2dp 2y agoWhy is Apple presented as the protagonist in this headline? It's obvious that they fought this teeth and nails. No, store employees managed to make a behemoth bow and accept their demands.
- tgsovlerkhgsel 2y agoThere is a recurring pattern where companies fight any kind of worker representation and unionization as hard as they can, paint vivid doomsday scenarios why it's actually bad for workers - and create the impression that it is futile because the company will never "play along" and just sabotage forever or even close locations etc. And when the organizing succeeds, the company often actually accepts it and lives with it, trying to make the best out of it (rather than keeping on fighting a losing war) and it turns out to not be so horrible after all. If you are ever involved in organizing - expect this pattern.
- benguild 2y agosame with third-party App Stores or any other thing like that
- itake 2y agomaybe this is just a small sample size, but Seattle and Orlando have lost a few local businesses months after the employees unionized. - Homegrown: https://www.seattletimes.com/business/seattle-sandwich-chain-homegrown-to-close-10-cafes-cut-workers/ https://www.seattletimes.com/business/seattle-sandwich-chain... - Dandelions: https://www.orlandoweekly.com/food-drink/dandelion-community-cafe-closes-doors-permanently-after-worker-lock-out-27795390 https://www.orlandoweekly.com/food-drink/dandelion-community... - Starbucks (multiple locations): https://edition.cnn.com/2022/11/22/business/starbucks-closure-union/index.html https://edition.cnn.com/2022/11/22/business/starbucks-closur...
- lelandfe 2y agoIt is illegal to close a store for unionizing. It can be devilishly hard to prove that’s the case, but if the workers do, the NLRB has the power to force a store to reopen.
- tgsovlerkhgsel 2y agoStarbucks is a great example because it seems like they gave up now: https://jacobin.com/2024/02/starbucks-workers-united-master-contract-bargaining https://jacobin.com/2024/02/starbucks-workers-united-master-... The other two are examples of relatively small businesses that look like they either decided to burn everything to the ground and go out of business rather than accept a union for ideological reason or were failing independently of that.
- pelagicAustral 2y ago[flagged]
- BriggyDwiggs42 2y agoLess often.
- admralprawn 2y ago[flagged]
- mrangle 2y agoThe Bay Area 2073: one salary-maxed unionized unskilled State worker monitoring the Ai power led.
- exabrial 2y agoThe original purpose and intent of unions was to prevent workers from becoming literal wholesale slaughter in the interest of profits: machines that could remove limbs, train couplers that required a user to stick their fingers in it as they were coming together, mining conditions where collapse was not prevented, etc. I certainly hope Apple retail employees are facing no conditions that threaten their health or safety, and my suspicion is they are not. The "pool" of humans overall's wealth, health, safety, and happiness increases in general when people strive for more through education and training. I don't see retail jobs as a permanent resting place for anyone. They are useful learning tools however for learning how to interact with coworkers, customers, and develop other skills. The usage of Union law to abate this is bad for society as a whole.
- skybrian 2y agoSome background: https://www.construction-physics.com/p/how-much-safer-has-construction-gotten https://www.construction-physics.com/p/how-much-safer-has-co... > The most significant early step was the passage of workers compensation laws, which compensated workers in the event of an injury, increasing the costs to employers if workers were injured (Aldrich 1997). Prior to workers comp laws, a worker or his family would have to sue his employer for damages and prove negligence in the event of an injury or death. Wisconsin passed the first state workers comp law in 1911, and by 1921 most states had workers compensation programs. … > OSHA in particular dramatically changed the landscape of workplace safety, and is sometimes viewed as “the culmination of 60 or more years of effort towards a safe and hazard-free workplace.”
- squigz 2y ago> The usage of Union law to abate this is bad for society as a whole. Can you elaborate on how unions abate the lessons you mentioned previously?
- kanbara 2y agojust because you don’t “see” retail jobs as a permanent resting place for anyone doesn’t mean that’s not what has happened and continues to happen across this country. people quite simply do not have the ability geographically, per skill level, or at a certain level of risk, to do what you propose and get a higher paying more skilled job. EVERY job should be livable and with proper benefits like universal healthcare and paid leave. if the company cannot afford it, it should not exist. people are real, companies are not.
- diebeforei485 2y agoIt's unclear that they will be better off in terms of their take-home pay net of union dues.
- HaZeust 2y agoUsed to shop here all the time when I lived in Baltimore, a friend that works as a Genius there had been speaking about them trying to organize as early as 2017 - when HE first started. Not a surprise - welcome news.