Apple Hit With Unfair Labor Practice Charge for Refusing to Transfer Unionized Towson Workers

[AgentOSX]

Sounds like the Union needed a better contract.

 

[Mr_Ed]

Isn’t this like the only unionized Apple store in the US? If so, that tells me Apple is treating employees pretty well. I doubt this particular union was even worth the dues employees at that store had to pay.

 

[WiseAJ]

Unions have no business being involved with Apple Retail. They clearly are better off without one.

 

[dwaite]

This is hardly the first time that this particular union has loudly complained about their own poor negotiating skills with Apple on behalf of their members. The problem is Apple's default benefits are rather good, better than what the union contract specifies.

 

[now i see it]

another week, another apl lawsuit

 

[maxoakland]

Good. Apple needs to learn to respect labor laws. They don't just get to do whatever they want

 

[maxoakland]

Correct and Unions were needed to prevent that - in modern times they are useless as they work on a tenure principle rather than a performance principle.

Nonsense. Unions are here to prevent us from backsliding to where we were in the past. Get rid of them and wages, work hours, and everything else will get even worse

Sure, unions aren't perfect because nothing is perfect. Getting rid of things because they aren't perfect is foolish

 

[maxoakland]

Couple years ago, I went to the Apple Store at one of the malls in St. Louis. Getting new phones and mentioned I wish they had a store closer to me. Started stalking wages, and the Apple employee said, they start at like 24+ an hr…

I was making like 20 working in a dirty warehouse.

Fed Min is still less than 8(?)
Missouri Min I think is now 14-15

OK. So is your point that Apple employees should make even less because you aren't paid fairly? $24 an hour is still under $50,000 a year, which is very little. Apple can easily afford to pay the backbone of their customer support really well, and they should because it gives us all better customer service

Just goes to show why unions exist. If you had a union you could negotiate together for higher wages for your job in a dirty warehouse. Then you wouldn't have to complain about someone making $5 more than you

 

[jimbobb24]

I haven't been following this closely but I thought that was the deal the Union made when they unionized?

 

[Unregistered 4U]

Isn’t this like the only unionized Apple store in the US? If so, that tells me Apple is treating employees pretty well. I doubt this particular union was even worth the dues employees at that store had to pay.

When I looked into it at the time, the list of grievances appeared to be related to the behavior of poor local management. All the union did in this case was lock them in to a specific way managers were to behave, but lock them out of anything else Apple does ad hoc for their employees. For example, a union wasn’t required for Apple to decide to pay employees to not do retail work and instead do phone support work from home until stores could reopen. Today, Apple could still do the same for their non-union employees, but if the union employees didn’t have that in their contract, they wouldn’t get that.

I’m not sure what benefit a union retail employee would get over a non-union one at this point.

 

[Contact_Feanor]

Good. Apple needs to learn to respect labor laws. They don't just get to do whatever they want

might be good to actually reserve judgment until the case has been decided? Not every complaint means the plaintiff is right...

 

[Unregistered 4U]

Nonsense. Unions are here to prevent us from backsliding to where we were in the past. Get rid of them and wages, work hours, and everything else will get even worse

Sure, unions aren't perfect because nothing is perfect. Getting rid of things because they aren't perfect is foolish

I agree here. There are places where non-union and union folks don’t have the same jobs, but are aware of each other’s benefits. The non-union employees benefit from the company doing things to help prevent those employees from wanting to join or start a union. They get benefits they wouldn’t receive at only companies where the employees have no union exposure.

 

[AriaAmaris]

I will avoid any unionized Apple Store. Go visit your local grocery store and see what happens when stores unionize. You’ll end up with a self check out stand and one unknowledgeable worker on duty.

 

[Naraxus]

Reason #1,857,363,849,539 why unions are completely useless

 

[Fallforward]

Per a search, the contract has never been published, so we are dependent on summarizations and quotes from the folks on either side. Apparently the union thought it was a big win to negotiate a severance clause that gave workers first right of refusal for any new store within 50 miles - the key word here is "new." There are several stores within that radius but none are new. Perhaps the union negotiators were focused on stores what are essentialy moved versus closed.

It's hard to denegrate the union because service contracts always have defects on both sides. It's the nature of the beast - too many variables - and there were probably many higher priorities. It's hard to denegrate Apple for sticking to the letter of the contract when the parties are in a win/lose relationship. I have given breaks to cliients and clients have given breaks to my organization many times, but we were always dependent on each other to achieve a common goal.

 

[tridley68]

Hope the union wins those employees don't need to lose their jobs

 

[Black Belt]

These are unskilled retail salespeople. They don’t deserve a union. They can be replaced in 30 seconds, literally.

 

[v3rlon]

Correct and Unions were needed to prevent that - in modern times they are useless as they work on a tenure principle rather than a performance principle.

No, they are not useless as corporate greed would easily have us back there in no time. We need a balance to keep corporate greed from running roughshod over workers. Case in point, can you name a fortune 500 company that hasn't been found in the wrong on labor practices? No you can't. How do I know? Because ALL of them have had to settle things like Wage theft, non-compete/no-poach, unsafe working conditions and so on. 68% of low wage workers experience at least one pay violation in a single week.
So, we have not reached Star Trek Federation levels of Utopia just yet. Unions still serve a purpose.

On the other hand, if unions become powerful, that power will attract its own bad apples and corrupt those people as well. We have seen those examples, too.

And sometimes, there are unforeseen/unintended consequences to the language of a contract. We have to wait and see which one this is.

 

[Crow_Servo]

Maybe I miss something, but how far is "employees are relocated automatically" different from "eligible to apply for open roles at Apple" ? I would expect that in both cases this needs agreement between employee and employer and this is limited to open positions.

If it’s anything like what happened in my experience, when your store is set to close, you are given a number of stores to transfer to. You don’t have to apply. You just pick the store and that’s where you work now.

I absolutely believe in unionization, but it doesn’t sound like the contract negotiators planned for this type of occurrence. Very unfortunate.

 

[ikramerica]

If this is true: "Apple said the union rules at the Towson location prevented it from moving the workers to other stores" then the union will lose this case. However, if Apple’s lawyers argue that they legally cannot grant Towson employees standard corporate relocation benefits because those benefits aren't explicitly in the contract, then I'm not sure the NLRB will like that very much.

I'm withholding any judgment until this issue is resolved.

They will likely argue that they value union workers and will always honor the contract as agreed to.

If Apple decided they didn’t want to follow another part of the contract, would the union be so quick to say it’s fine?

More likely people who were screwed by or had family members screwed by unions failing to protect them after exploiting them for union dues. Unions lock up exclusive agreements making it impossible to work for some businesses or some industries unless you are a union member so you have to pay the dues, and because the union knows they have that "labor monopoly" they have no incentive to help new union members -- only protecting those with seniority. It happened to my father.

Or literally lock you out of a profession so that they can apply nepotism to union member children.

Unions also fight productivity increasing machinery because it would mean fewer employees in the future, which means higher costs and less competitiveness for that company.

There are many industries being destroyed by unions, where it’s better to shut down than continue under union contracts that by design make the businesses unprofitable.

Then you have the President who was trying to equalize some of that with tariffs, and of course because people hate him, the same people who might benefit from those actions are were not supportive.

 

[macsimcon]

I have no problem supporting unions, but the store is in a failing location. If the employees want to move to a new location or commute, they'll keep their job. Contracts are contracts.

But that is NOT what Apple said. They said the Towson employees could apply at other Apple locations, not that they'd be guaranteed a position.

You know why the middle class and working class are poor? Because our government has allowed corporations to destroy unions. If EVERYONE in the country were required to belong to a union, the minimum wage would be $50K a year and people could afford to live. And union wages lift the wages of non-union jobs by creating a floor. Everyone benefits...except the greedy corporations. You know, like Timmy's Apple.

Of course, we don't have an administration right now that will defend unions, only crush them.

 

[leicaman]

Correct and Unions were needed to prevent that - in modern times they are useless as they work on a tenure principle rather than a performance principle.

Not true, and if you think for a second the protections unions brought this country aren't under attack so they can go back to the bad old days, just look at legislation in Iowa and Florida (surprise surprise) to end child labor laws. Yeah, great idea letting 10 year olds work in meat packing plants, right?

Now, if you want to talk about police unions protecting bad cops, I'm with you. But as they say, you need to do surgery with a scalple, not a chainsaw.

 

[Tyler O'Bannon]

We all knew this was coming. We’ll transfer all the workers not in the union. I don’t blame them one bit.

 

[jakey rolling]

There was a time when children worked in horrific factories. This is thankfully not that time. Move on.

Are you sure about that?

Federal court orders Hyundai, Kia auto parts manufacturer to stop employing minors illegally, end ‘oppressive’ child labor law violations

Court orders Hyundai and Kia parts maker to stop child labor law violations.

www.dol.gov

 

[Octavius8]

What exactly forbids Apple to relocate the employees?