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It's illegal to close a store just because you're afraid of unions. It's one thing for a Starbucks to close a store because they're opening and closing stores a

It's illegal to close a store just because you're afraid of unions. It's one thing for a Starbucks to close a store because they're opening and closing stores all the time and have thinner profit margins and thus have cover, but for Apple it's another deal.

bilbo0s 2y ago
Everyone has ‘cover’. It’s just the P&L sheet. If they’re losing money on that store, they’ll close it. If not, they’ll keep it open. But it’s not mandated to keep a money losing store opened. No one’s going to go into court and argue, “no fair! They closed my money losing location!” And there you have the real reason Apple doesn’t care about a union here. The performance of this location can be ascertained in a fashion that is authoritative, objective, and unassailable. If they ever lose money, they’ll close, union or no union. So it doesn’t make a difference to Apple.
- deleted 2y ago
  [deleted]
_the_inflator 2y ago
Paper… I am a Senior Manager and saw a thing or two. What I dislike about your statement is the confrontational usage. If we don’t fundamentally agree on collaboration, we run into fights over power. A business owner sets the direction and the goals. A union is a commitment and should go beyond defensive rights. Both should work together on different interests sometimes but shall fundamentally agree: without a successful business there won’t be any employees, not the other way around.
- kergonath 2y ago
  > without a successful business there won’t be any employees, not the other way around. And without employees there would not be any business. At the end of the day they put the work as well. It’s in Apple’s interest to keep these employees happy because they are the face of the company. Their customers interact with them when they buy something and when something goes wrong. I agree that the relationship should be more constructive than confrontational, but it goes both ways. Apple is both a wonderful and difficult company to work for.
  - Jensson 2y ago
    > And without employees there would not be any business. At the end of the day they put the work as well. Successful businesses always attracts employees, that has never been an issue. So the scarcity here comes from the business side and not the employee side. The other way around would be that employees starts a successful business if there is none around, but that isn't the case. Good setups that enables good jobs are hard to create, you see what happens when those leave in the Midwest after the car industry left. In the end it is up to each area to ensure their workers are competitive on a global stage, either price wise or skill wise or some other advantage. Otherwise there wont be anyone who wants to pay them.
- deleted 2y ago
  [deleted]
- rcbdev 2y ago
  In Europa this is called the "social partnership".
- gatlin 2y ago
  Having someone around to do the actual work is absolutely a prerequisite to a successful business. Too much time in management might blunt that understanding but I assure you it's true.
  - mrangle 2y ago
    But unskilled union labor dictates that it has to be them or those whom they approve of "around to do the actual work" ("actual" is doing a lot of heavy lifting here) or else the business that they don't own can't be a business at all. It can't be anyone else, even when it could easily be. Businesses that employ unskilled labor aren't the equal partnership that you want to make them out to be. See the fact that the trend is toward international outsourcing. Unionization will increase that trend, even if the cashier that the public sees is now making $20/hr (now at half-time hours and much of her family has now had to move out of the area to find work, due to a downward trend in job availability: aggravating the gentrification or the depopulation trend, depending on the area). I think that Unions are economically and socially useful, but not in the case of what is essentially unskilled labor. As beyond the rational nonsense of such a proposition, the existence of non-unionized unskilled labor plays an important economic and social role. For one, these jobs maximize job availability to a lower class that is growing for reasons other than job availability and average salary trends. The alternative being unemployment. And unskilled unions should especially be discouraged when other wage control issues are both not addressed and frankly aggravated by the generally pro union side. In summary, unskilled labor wages should be buoyed by measures other than unions: reasonable minimum wage law, labor supply control at the population level, etc. As unskilled Unions otherwise distort the economy and social sphere too much. Last, one can't rationally justify the existence of such Unions on profit margin. If they are justified for one, then they are justified for all. And vice versa.
    - sgarland 2y ago
      All labor is skilled labor. Sometimes the required skill is dealing with unpleasant members of the public who believe them to be lessers, all while keeping a smile on their face.
- FireBeyond 2y ago
  > without a successful business there won’t be any employees, not the other way around. How do you get that successful business? Employees like Product Managers trying to analyze product market fit, leadership setting direction, etc. This happens a lot in small business - the owner/founder thinks they and they alone have the magic sauce, and it quickly becomes "you should be grateful to have this opportunity to work on my ideas".
- johnnyanmac 2y ago
  >Both should work together on different interests sometimes but shall fundamentally agree: without a successful business there won’t be any employees, not the other way around. And that social contract was broken some 6-10 years ago at this point. Businesses can be successful, record breaking profits successful. But still refuse a raise or even lay you off to save a penny. So the increased opposition is inevitable. You can't just lie saying "times are tough", cut hours and and pretend unemployment is at an all time low, and not expect your labor to resent the business.
  - bluefirebrand 2y ago
    Especially not with the news being wall-to-wall with headlines about many of these employers making record profits
roenxi 2y ago
That seems a somewhat pretzel-like contortion to enforce. If Apple says they don't want to run the store, how are they to be forced to run it? Especially if someone a bit Machiavellian gets involved; it can't possibly be hard for management to create reasons for a business to close. It is a delicate enough operation keeping one open; feigned incompetence at any level could easily result in a good reason to shut a store down. What leverage are the union employees supposed to bring to bear, strike until the store opens? Or if suing business into existence turns out to be a workable strategy then we've maybe been running society wrong for a long time now.
- lucianbr 2y ago
  Isn't Apple running that store for a reason? Maybe to sell something, I would imagine. They should be opposed to closing it for that reason. Of course, that's assuming the main activity of a business is to make and sell things. Could be a wrong assumption.
  - numpad0 2y ago
    They can just spin up a new instance and destroy the old one. Legality aside…
  - rdtsc 2y ago
    But they run many others too not just that particular one store. Even closing and reopening a few stores in the region just to teach others “a lesson” could make “business sense”. They just have to find unrelated business reasons for to put on paper.
  - mrangle 2y ago
    It is a wrong assumption. The only activity of a business is to turn a profit.
    - canadianfella 2y ago
      [dead]
- 2y ago

bilbo0s 2y ago

Everyone has ‘cover’. It’s just the P&L sheet. If they’re losing money on that store, they’ll close it. If not, they’ll keep it open. But it’s not mandated to keep a money losing store opened. No one’s going to go into court and argue, “no fair! They closed my money losing location!” And there you have the real reason Apple doesn’t care about a union here. The performance of this location can be ascertained in a fashion that is authoritative, objective, and unassailable. If they ever lose money, they’ll close, union or no union. So it doesn’t make a difference to Apple.

deleted 2y ago
[deleted]

_the_inflator 2y ago

Paper… I am a Senior Manager and saw a thing or two. What I dislike about your statement is the confrontational usage. If we don’t fundamentally agree on collaboration, we run into fights over power. A business owner sets the direction and the goals. A union is a commitment and should go beyond defensive rights. Both should work together on different interests sometimes but shall fundamentally agree: without a successful business there won’t be any employees, not the other way around.

kergonath 2y ago
> without a successful business there won’t be any employees, not the other way around. And without employees there would not be any business. At the end of the day they put the work as well. It’s in Apple’s interest to keep these employees happy because they are the face of the company. Their customers interact with them when they buy something and when something goes wrong. I agree that the relationship should be more constructive than confrontational, but it goes both ways. Apple is both a wonderful and difficult company to work for.
- Jensson 2y ago
  > And without employees there would not be any business. At the end of the day they put the work as well. Successful businesses always attracts employees, that has never been an issue. So the scarcity here comes from the business side and not the employee side. The other way around would be that employees starts a successful business if there is none around, but that isn't the case. Good setups that enables good jobs are hard to create, you see what happens when those leave in the Midwest after the car industry left. In the end it is up to each area to ensure their workers are competitive on a global stage, either price wise or skill wise or some other advantage. Otherwise there wont be anyone who wants to pay them.
deleted 2y ago
[deleted]
rcbdev 2y ago
In Europa this is called the "social partnership".
gatlin 2y ago
Having someone around to do the actual work is absolutely a prerequisite to a successful business. Too much time in management might blunt that understanding but I assure you it's true.
- mrangle 2y ago
  But unskilled union labor dictates that it has to be them or those whom they approve of "around to do the actual work" ("actual" is doing a lot of heavy lifting here) or else the business that they don't own can't be a business at all. It can't be anyone else, even when it could easily be. Businesses that employ unskilled labor aren't the equal partnership that you want to make them out to be. See the fact that the trend is toward international outsourcing. Unionization will increase that trend, even if the cashier that the public sees is now making $20/hr (now at half-time hours and much of her family has now had to move out of the area to find work, due to a downward trend in job availability: aggravating the gentrification or the depopulation trend, depending on the area). I think that Unions are economically and socially useful, but not in the case of what is essentially unskilled labor. As beyond the rational nonsense of such a proposition, the existence of non-unionized unskilled labor plays an important economic and social role. For one, these jobs maximize job availability to a lower class that is growing for reasons other than job availability and average salary trends. The alternative being unemployment. And unskilled unions should especially be discouraged when other wage control issues are both not addressed and frankly aggravated by the generally pro union side. In summary, unskilled labor wages should be buoyed by measures other than unions: reasonable minimum wage law, labor supply control at the population level, etc. As unskilled Unions otherwise distort the economy and social sphere too much. Last, one can't rationally justify the existence of such Unions on profit margin. If they are justified for one, then they are justified for all. And vice versa.
  - sgarland 2y ago
    All labor is skilled labor. Sometimes the required skill is dealing with unpleasant members of the public who believe them to be lessers, all while keeping a smile on their face.
FireBeyond 2y ago
> without a successful business there won’t be any employees, not the other way around. How do you get that successful business? Employees like Product Managers trying to analyze product market fit, leadership setting direction, etc. This happens a lot in small business - the owner/founder thinks they and they alone have the magic sauce, and it quickly becomes "you should be grateful to have this opportunity to work on my ideas".
johnnyanmac 2y ago
>Both should work together on different interests sometimes but shall fundamentally agree: without a successful business there won’t be any employees, not the other way around. And that social contract was broken some 6-10 years ago at this point. Businesses can be successful, record breaking profits successful. But still refuse a raise or even lay you off to save a penny. So the increased opposition is inevitable. You can't just lie saying "times are tough", cut hours and and pretend unemployment is at an all time low, and not expect your labor to resent the business.
- bluefirebrand 2y ago
  Especially not with the news being wall-to-wall with headlines about many of these employers making record profits

roenxi 2y ago

That seems a somewhat pretzel-like contortion to enforce. If Apple says they don't want to run the store, how are they to be forced to run it? Especially if someone a bit Machiavellian gets involved; it can't possibly be hard for management to create reasons for a business to close. It is a delicate enough operation keeping one open; feigned incompetence at any level could easily result in a good reason to shut a store down. What leverage are the union employees supposed to bring to bear, strike until the store opens? Or if suing business into existence turns out to be a workable strategy then we've maybe been running society wrong for a long time now.

lucianbr 2y ago
Isn't Apple running that store for a reason? Maybe to sell something, I would imagine. They should be opposed to closing it for that reason. Of course, that's assuming the main activity of a business is to make and sell things. Could be a wrong assumption.
- numpad0 2y ago
  They can just spin up a new instance and destroy the old one. Legality aside…
- rdtsc 2y ago
  But they run many others too not just that particular one store. Even closing and reopening a few stores in the region just to teach others “a lesson” could make “business sense”. They just have to find unrelated business reasons for to put on paper.
- mrangle 2y ago
  It is a wrong assumption. The only activity of a business is to turn a profit.
  - canadianfella 2y ago
    [dead]
2y ago