Apple Retail Chief Dissuades Employees From Unionizing in New Video

[TallManNY]

I've been using Macs since my LC when I was child. When the retail stores opened they were awesome and the employees actually liked computers/tech and genius actually knew what was wrong. Now it's just a job and they wanted a discount. If I can avoid going to the stores now I do.
Some employees are great but most don't know anything and give the wrong advice.

Yeah, some employees give the wrong advice and I can tell. But I'm a big Apple Fan and like you, I've been using Macs longer than many of the employees have been alive. So sure, I probably know more about the computers in their store than the sales people outside of the genius group. But that says more about me knowing a lot, than the employees being particularly uninformed. The service is generally very good and is always acceptable in my opinion. Genius group can solve a lot of issues as well.

 

[SSDGUY]

Scabs! Rabble rousing. Strikebreakers, billy clubs, moon shine, Model Ts, G men!, shotguns, Wobblies, clunky work boots, town store, let's go get em, boys! etc.

Pretty sure nowadays they'll just strangle you with their mask straps. That's if they possess the upper body strength.

 

[pugxiwawa]

Because the status quo of the last 40 years has gutted the middle class. Median household income is around $67k which is actually not great. Especially when compared with the median home sale price being over $400k. Unions are what built the original middle class of this country and the decline of the middle class has been in tandem with the decline in union membership rates.

One's is paid what market can bear his/her skill set. That's the idea of capitalist market. You are paid what you are worth. If you are not making the type of income you desire, you can put in the sweats to obtain more specialize skills, and in return, earning higher pay. Isn't this part of American dream? Why does retail pay less? There's not much skills involved and the pool of people can do the job is large. Supply vs demand. Forming union doesn't change the fact that it is still a low skin job, but now you are getting paid and valued as a group instead of having opportunity to work hard and rise to different position. Again, promotes mediocracy.

 

[BGPL]

it’s really amazing how the most normal things are such a big deal in the US. From masks, to the word that shall not be said ?, Health care to unions.

Yep, it's hard being on top.

 

[ninethirty]

I really hope they don't unionize. My stocks are going to plummet.

Oh no! Your stocks!? Take decent raises, great healthcare, job security, but not this mans stocks!! Can't we all think of the investors?

 

[vipergts2207]

One's is paid what market can bear his/her skill set. That's the idea of capitalist market. You are paid what you are worth. If you are not making the type of income you desire, you can put in the sweats to obtain more specialize skills, and in return, earning higher pay. Isn't this part of American dream? Why does retail pay less? There's not much skills involved and the pool of people can do the job is large. Supply vs demand. Forming union doesn't change the fact that it is still a low skin job, but now you are getting paid and valued as a group instead of having opportunity to work hard and rise to different position. Again, promotes mediocracy.

The American dream is to own a house and the ability to retire one day. That’s a dream that’s becoming further and further out of reach for a great many people. It’s no coincidence that high levels of union membership coincided with the peak of the middle class. Retail and service industry workers have to put up with a barrage a BS from entitled customers day in day out. I had my fill working at Walmart when I was in college and props to the people who can put up with that their whole lives. I certainly couldn’t do that. Also it’s weird that you think unions and the ability to prove personal worth to the company are mutually exclusive. Do you think people in unions don’t receive promotions? Do you think everyone in a union are all doing the same job? That’s supposed to be the case at the facility where I work I guess? Just 200 forklift drivers driving around, all for the same pay??? News flash, unions can and do setup pay to be based on both time with the company and the job that you do. Every union and contract is different.

 

[Naraxus]

Good on Apple. Unions are nothing more than a joke who have LONG outlived their usefulness.

You're a retail employee. You're not going to get rich working in retail. There are far too many people competing for your job.

Apple should just close up every store that tries to unionize and open a new one elsewhere, hiring new employees.

And tell these unionizing thugs to pound sand

 

[ThirteenXIII]

I dont know how a union is going to solve their problems. most unions will require membership, payments, etc. and sometimes they dont always have your best interests...the only person that does is you/yourself and in that case find a new job and get your pay raise that way. no company or union will give a $h!t about your personal interests, I was part of a company that had an employee union and if you leave for any reason generally they dont welcome you back so it limits your choices and didn't seem to be useful at all.

 

[vipergts2207]

Good on Apple. Unions are nothing more than a joke who have LONG outlived their usefulness.

You're a retail employee. You're not going to get rich working in retail. There are far too many people competing for your job.

Apple should just close up every store that tries to unionize and open a new one elsewhere, hiring new employees.

And tell these unionizing thugs to pound sand

I think it's quite humorous that you're simultaneously telling retail employees that unions are useless while at the same time telling them to accept being dirt poor for the work they do. For the record, I don't think anyone is expecting workers to become rich working retail. However, it would be nice if they were paid enough that taxpayers weren't subsidizing Walmart's poor wages by the employees being able to qualify for food stamps because they make so little money.

I dont know how a union is going to solve their problems. most unions will require membership, payments, etc. and sometimes they dont always have your best interests...the only person that does is you/yourself and in that case find a new job and get your pay raise that way. no company or union will give a $h!t about your personal interests, I was part of a company that had an employee union and if you leave for any reason generally they dont welcome you back so it limits your choices and didn't seem to be useful at all.

Does something preclude someone from unionizing or joining a union and then leaving later on down the road for a different opportunity? You're acting like one must choose between only ever joining a union or choosing to seek other opportunities elsewhere, which is nonsense. You can do one and then the other later on if you so wish.

 

[cylack]

LMAO! Of course that’s what a company shill would say. Unionize and get paid more. There is no legit reason whatsoever why Tim Cook deserves $50M per year or whatever he gets as a bonus and can’t live on less. Get some of those profits for yourselves workers and let shareholders and upper management have a little bit less.

 

[ScottishDuck]

Always incredible to me the bootlickers who defend the system and praise billionaires, all the while getting gouged and exploited like everyone else. The condition seems particularly prevalent in the crumbling nation of the USA.

 

[dmr727]

Good on Apple. Unions are nothing more than a joke who have LONG outlived their usefulness.

The union I belong to has been exceptionally useful.

 

[CoolSpot]

I won't get too political because its not what I come to Macrumors for, but I hate the insinuation that there is some bi-directional relationship that companies have with their employee. That somehow it's a two-way street and not a strict hierarchy where employees do what they are told and have 100% of their terms dictated to them or are replaced immediately with ones that will.

Apple and other businesses love dealing with singular employees because they know that they hold all the cards and that the employee has zero leverage. When employees agree to band together, the company is quick to rush in and tell them that they don't need to and that Apple is fully committed to them without needing representation.

I strongly support Apple workers wanting to unionize.

 

[planteater]

Just had another bad experience at Apple store this morning. I have no sympathy for the workers there. Rude, incompetent, unaccommodating. Whatever gives them the worst treatment and pay, I am for it. Definitely reward those who perform well -- but not equal treatment for everybody, and no rewards for the freeloaders who just tag along.

Wow, that’s the opposite of what I experienced when I bought my new iPhone and MBP. Excellent experience in every way. Professional, fast, friendly, the best.

 

[vipergts2207]

Always incredible to me the bootlickers who defend the system and praise billionaires, all the while getting gouged and exploited like everyone else. The condition seems particularly prevalent in the crumbling nation of the USA.

That's a nice little trick the upper echelon pulls. "Hey you don't have it so bad, look at all these people that have it way worse than you. Be thankful, don't feel angry and exploited." Meanwhile the person buying this load of crap probably makes $50k/year, but thinks they're doing great because retail workers are making $12/hr. Pro-tip: $50k/year ain't ****.

 

[pugxiwawa]

The American dream is to own a house and the ability to retire one day. That’s a dream that’s becoming further and further out of reach for a great many people. It’s no coincidence that high levels of union membership coincided with the peak of the middle class. Retail and service industry workers have to put up with a barrage a BS from entitled customers day in day out. I had my fill working at Walmart when I was in college and props to the people who can put up with that their whole lives. I certainly couldn’t do that. Also it’s weird that you think unions and the ability to prove personal worth to the company are mutually exclusive. Do you think people in unions don’t receive promotions? Do you think everyone in a union are all doing the same job? That’s supposed to be the case at the facility where I work I guess? Just 200 forklift drivers driving around, all for the same pay??? News flash, unions can and do setup pay to be based on both time with the company and the job that you do. Every union and contract is different.

It is definitely a coincidence that high levels of union membership in some ways correlated to the rising of middle class, if we just look over the obvious economic boom during the same time. Retail workers don't like to put up with BS? They are welcome to quit and find another job, just like you and I if we are not satisfied with our current job. Why are retail workers different? Again, they are getting paid with what market can bear. If everyone in retail just quits and no one works in retail, then Apple will be forced to raise pay to attract talent. As of now, seems like Apple is paying above market rate with health benefits, and people still want to go to work for Apple retail. What's the use of union in this case besides getting monthly due from members and paying union reps?
Great the forklift drivers are happy in the union. But think this way, if you are the best of the best at whatever you do, wouldn't you want to go where the company that pays the highest compensation? Why do you want to be limited to the scale set out by union. If you are the best, you are leaving money on the table to compensate the mediocre drivers in the union. If you are the top and very best of what you do in your professional, you absolutely do not want to be in an union. That's what makes American tech companies so great because they pay by meritocracy. Companies are forced to pay top dollars in order to retain the best talent. Union promotes the opposite.

 

[Unregistered 4U]

Power to the people! Get some of that 2 trillion anyway they can!

Yeah, I think that’s really what it’s about. Not necessarily that they are treated egregiously poorly across the board and want better treatment. Just that some of the employees think that they should be able to make living wages from a retail job. And they feel this is a way they can get it. When it comes down to it, though retail jobs are highly fungible, so I doubt they’ll be able to get much.

 

[4jasontv]

Yes, but it's still retail. It's better than working at most of the other stores in the mall.

Can you point to evidence of Apple providing these benefits to Apple employees?

Does Apple provide retail employees performance-based bonuses?
Does Apple offer retail employees off-cycle raises?
Does Apple offer retail employees stock?
Does Apple regularly promote retail employees to positions of greater influence?
Does Apple offer retail employees lower insurance premiums over time?

Apple is concerned about the rate they offer these benefits. How often are they currently providing career and financial benefits to retail employees? Monthly? Quarterly? Bi-anually?

What other new career benefits does Apple routinely provide to retail employees that they can't do with a Union?

 

[fuchsdh]

These companies trying to prevent unionization are so transparent. "Please don't unionize, we're only looking out for your best interest" they say as they offer terrible pay and crap benefits. ? Glad to see Americans rediscovering unions. Might finally be able to rebuild the middle class in this country.

Eh, nothing that the chief said in the video is untrue, it's just only certain facets of the discussion.

Unions are in many ways a pretty piss-poor approach to better labor conditions versus state and federal labor reform, but I get why in the absence of the latter people are pushing for the former. But they're absolutely not magic bullets, and while there are the obvious reasons Apple doesn't want a union that are self-serving, many of the people who treat unions as the solution to worker problems I'd wager likely haven't been in one themselves.

Unions can be good—I kept my health insurance while furloughed during the COVID-19 pandemic, for instance. On the other hand, my work environment is made worse by the mediocre to plain incompetent colleagues that cannot be removed because they're in the union, too, and that's going to be a huge reason while I'm likely to leave in the near future. Things do take much longer because of layers of negotiation, and the original union I joined ceased to exist and got merged because the union leadership was corrupt (is the new leadership better? How the hell am I supposed to know?)

I wish unions weren't considered the single axis with which to discuss labor issues in the US right now.

 

[bluespark]

I agree. It was a dream to find a job at an Apple Store. It doesn't seem like that's the case anymore. Sad reality!

I agree that things have changed considerably with Apple Stores. The jobs don't appear nearly as sought-after and the employees aren't as uniformly excellent (though many are). Fixing that requires better management, but it doesn't necessarily require unionizing.

Apple is correct that unions come with some downsides -- for example, it can be much harder to fire a bad employee. I've witnessed this as a union member myself (until I left the union): in the case I'm thinking of, one slacker employee created more work for many others but was basically unfireable because he was the union rep. In that situation, the collective bargaining result was an unreasonable result.

 

[dysamoria]

Same old same old from corporations… I had a bad union, but I absolutely support workers unionizing.

 

[nebojsak]

I really hope they don't unionize. My stocks are going to plummet.

As they say, it's a free market. Buy some others' stock, or find some job, or whatever.

 

[maxoakland]

This is honestly extremely offensive

 

[madrigal77]

Any store that unionizes should be immediately shut down.

 

[maxoakland]

Just had another bad experience at Apple store this morning. I have no sympathy for the workers there. Rude, incompetent, unaccommodating. Whatever gives them the worst treatment and pay, I am for it. Definitely reward those who perform well -- but not equal treatment for everybody, and no rewards for the freeloaders who just tag along.

1. Everyone deserves to make a living and have healthcare even if they’re rude
2. Maybe they’d be better at their jobs if they didn’t have to worry about paying rent and were happy that they could afford something enjoyable too