Toggle sidebar Toggle sidebar
Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.

Apple Store Managers Being Trained On "Union Awareness"

People don't seem to understand the concept of companies competing for labor. Why do you think most companies pay more than the minimum wage? Because they have to compete for labor. They also compete by offering benefits. Not because of the glorious history of unions.
 
Dcr2k said:
You have health benefits at your job? You have personal days or sick days? Protection on getting fired if as a female you become pregnant or bedridden while pregnant? Vacation time? All of those things do not exist without unions. Know your history, get educated before you spout off.

Just because a good thing can be abused does not void its existence.
Click to expand...

We have all of those things in my industry and no unions. I'm a software engineer working in California.

I know that it is different if you are a low-skill low pay worker. No One really care if one of then says "I quit" so they do need a union

Apple does need to train their management on the law. Apple can get in big trouble if they don't so the training should be required of all managers.

----------
jackc said:
People don't seem to understand the concept of companies competing for labor. Why do you think most companies pay more than the minimum wage? Because they have to compete for labor. They also compete by offering benefits. Not because of the glorious history of unions.
Click to expand...


As I just wrote in another reply. I agree. Your theory works as long as companies do have to compete.

Mostly they do compete for skilled workers but not at the bottom end. If you need people to cook burgers or empty trash cans there is an unlimited supply. Unions might make sense for non-skilled labor if there is an over supply
 
MacVidCards said:
Unions have absolutely GUTTED the film biz here in LA.
Click to expand...

It also helps that other states and countries offer considerable tax breaks and incentives that do not necessarily exist here in California.

Be that as it may, it would be ironic if unions truly led to the destruction of film jobs here. When film studios first decided to work in LA, one of the main reasons was that LA was an open town (New York, where most of the film industry was located previously, was a union-town). Studios were also trying to escape the Edison Trust lawyers, but the labor situation was a very important factor.
 
Nicky G said:
I think what the poster meant was that these things NEVER would have existed as concepts, anywhere, if it hadn't been for the action of unions in the past. Which is basically true, thus the poster's suggestion to learn your history. While it is true that unions are not required in every job environment to have these benefits, there wouldn't have been a notion of "benefits" as something more or less offered as standard practice without the historical action of unions.
Click to expand...

All true. But in virtually all business sectors they not only have outlived their usefulness, but they tend to cripple whole economies.
 
RRNYC said:
Even anti-union folks appreciate what unions had done many years ago but to think that if unions cease so will the benefits is BS. That's what the unions want their members to think.
Click to expand...

Agreed! To me this is like equating what Jesse Jackson does today to what Martin Luther King, Jr. did in the sixties.
Like others on this board, I'm not anti-union, except in the public sector where the taxpayers are relatively unrepresented. When you factor in dues etc. it just doesn't make sense for an apple employee to unionize.
 
cms2 said:
That is a bit like saying I have all the basic rights and freedoms of a U.S. citizen, but I never served in the military to defend those rights and freedoms. Therefore, the military is unnecessary to secure those rights and freedoms.

You are the beneficiary of the struggles of others.
Click to expand...

Very true and well said.
 
Dcr2k said:
You have health benefits at your job? You have personal days or sick days? Protection on getting fired if as a female you become pregnant or bedridden while pregnant? Vacation time? All of those things do not exist without unions. Know your history, get educated before you spout off.

Just because a good thing can be abused does not void its existence.
Click to expand...

Absurd. All those things certain exist independent of unions. I have all but the health benefits at my job, and I only don't have that because it's a tiny company and the government regulations about health benefits mean that they can't give us them without not being able to pay us instead. Unions do have good purposes, but those are not among them. Unions also have turned into mostly gigantic power machines that do far less for their members than for their leaders and the politicians who are funded by them, and many workers in the US have voted against unions in situations where they have been considered. There was even a case recently where workers voted against unionization in a plant, and then the government stepped in and is forcing the union to form anyways, despite overwhelming opposition from the workers. Unions don't need to be abolished, but they have grown to absurd entities that need to have most of their power stripped away and go back to simply being workers banding together to get what is fair.

jW
 
Maybe people should ask themselves, why billionaires and millionaires would be afraid of their employees collectively bargaining?
 
Last edited:
jwhitnah said:
Here in the US, they are blood sucking bullies that raise the cost of doing business. Good luck trying to fire incompetent workers.
Click to expand...

Agreed. The time of unions has passed. Nowadays, they are more of a detriment to society and the economy than an aid.
 
darkplanets said:
Depends on the location and position. For example, small Biotech can start at 90k +/- a fair amount depending on location, with big pharma coming in around 110k +/- a fair amount. Regardless, its far less than an average salary of 175k for a firefighter. As per overtime.... as a professional worker you don't get paid hourly; you get paid a salary to complete the work, regardless of how much time it takes.

As per the running into burning buildings... most of those people would do it for free. As for me, I'd say yeah, I could definitely do that for that salary.

Don't get me wrong, I have nothing against firefighters, but 175k average plus a pension? That's absurd.
Click to expand...

On what planet do firefighters make that much?

----------

Just a note from a teacher: teaching has pretty much the highest turnover rate of any profession, so obviously not everyone can do it or handle the pressure. And I'm not all about unions, even though I belong to one, but without it, I would have to quit and take your job. And yes, I'm confident I could.
 
cambox said:
Why would Apple be scared of a Union? They surely give good service to their employees? I mean if your one of the chosen few you get over a million shares! Nothing like share the wealth eh!
Click to expand...

I've heard it's stressful to work in the stores for little pay. They have to put up with demanding customers tryin to scam them for a replacement iPhone. They have lots of angry batterygate customers. It's a nightmare.
 
eye said:
On what planet do firefighters make that much?
Click to expand...

See below. Apparently this one.

nptski said:
Unions simply mean everyone is considered the same in every respect. Raises and advancement is measured in seniority, not merit. It is a failed system. It is built around the lowest common denominator. Good workers cannot negotiate on their own behalf. The abuse is rampant.

Look at the public sector, it has gotten patently ridiculous. In our city, we have a 911 operator that costs $176,000/year. Ask her what she makes, she will say $68,000 but conveniently leaves off the overtime (absurd union work rules cause and allow), sick days (meant for actually being sick, not to bank and get paid because you weren't a liar), huge pension, and some other goodies.

The average in the fire dept. $175,000/yr., that's the average! retire at 50, spike your pay in your last year of work aided by everyone in the dept. to unsure they get the same treatment. Gotta love the firemen but it has gotten way out of hand. There are literally millions that would happily do it for a lot less and do an equal or superior job.

Plainly said, unions are killing this country. They have enormous funding through involuntary dues and huge influence over politicians. They are themselves the evil corporations they so often berate. Does anyone really believe the bosses do what they do because they care? They do it because it is in their self interest, pure and simple.
Click to expand...
 
TMar said:
Why should someone's vocation dictate what they expect to get paid? Teachers should want to teach so they can teach not so they can make money. Don't get me wrong they should be able to make a living off of it but a lot of them expect to much out of it. Same with doctors where they should become doctors because they want to help people not to make $X amount per year.

It's the problem with society that people choose their vocations on what want to make per year instead of what they want/what motivates them. Most people choose a way of life to make money when they should choose what their passionate about.
Click to expand...

So because you do what you love, you shouldn't get a decent pay? Maybe the next step should be to make people pay to teach because it's a vocation.
 
eye said:
On what planet do firefighters make that much?

$100k and up is extraordinarily common in many fire departments across the country. Most of that is overtime pay, and yes, firefighters do work some brutal hours, but they are very well compensated for their time and for the risks to their safety. And the earlier comment about maxing hours in the final year to boost the pensions is absolutely true as well.

Source: My brother is a firefighter in a city near Disneyland in California.
Click to expand...
 
jonnysods said:
Wirelessly posted (Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; CPU iPhone OS 5_0 like Mac OS X) AppleWebKit/534.46 (KHTML, like Gecko) Mobile/9A334)

Unions. Thanks for sending manufacturing overseas because companies don't want to pay $35 an hour for a guy to put wheels on a car in North America.
Click to expand...

Companies would happily pay overseas works a $1 a day to put wheels on a car. There's no need to blame the Union.
 
Dcr2k said:
You have health benefits at your job? You have personal days or sick days? Protection on getting fired if as a female you become pregnant or bedridden while pregnant? Vacation time? All of those things do not exist without unions. Know your history, get educated before you spout off.

Just because a good thing can be abused does not void its existence.
Click to expand...

Standards of living, including the things that you mention here, have increased because wealth (and the economy) have increased. Not because of unions. FORCING a rule (through tactics that unions use) will not be of use to anyone in the long term if those rules push companies to either scale down, or move away.

Union supporters love to claim and to believe that improving conditions for workers have been a result of their efforts. The fact is, improving conditions do not correlate with union prominence. Instead, it correlates to improved economic output.

Countries with strong unions but poor investment have not had improving conditions, while countries that are union-free but pro-business, have had improving conditions. And yet unions have the nerve to claim that they have been the champions for workers.
 
That guy who tried to start a union, what does he really do an Apple store? Common... Ask me what I want, bring it out, and have me slide my card, and email me my receipt. That's it. Whenever I ask a question like, how do I plug in two monitors to my MacBook Pro, one DVI (Cinema), and newer 27 inch (non-thunderbolt) their heads explode! And they say there's no solution to which there is.

My parents did and still do heavy manual labor, and they don't have unions, and are underpaid. Those people deserve unions.
 
vertgo said:
You're a black person who's not a slave in America? Thank the Republicans. Just because something was once good for you does not mean it will always be good.
Click to expand...
Gosh, managed to irritate both sides of the aisle in one shot, while making it look effortless. Impressive... 🙂

----------
Will69 said:
Countries with strong unions but poor investment have not had improving conditions, while countries that are union-free but pro-business, have had improving conditions.
Click to expand...
Source? Scratch that, I'll be happy if you just tell me this paradise of a country that is union free.

----------
eye said:
On what planet do firefighters make that much?
Click to expand...
USA...

This is a bit out of date, but in line with figures I still hear every now and then:

http://ibvallejo.com/archive/fire_department_salaries.htm

Granted these are not the entry level positions, but Vallejo is not a large city and it actually went bankrupt a few years after that.
 
theBB said:
Gosh, managed to irritate both sides of the aisle in one shot, while making it look effortless. Impressive... 🙂

----------


Source? Scratch that, I'll be happy if you just tell me this paradise of a country that is union free.
Click to expand...

And why the use of the word "paradise"? Oh wait I know why, to create an irrelevant association like this..

(if not unioned then not paradise )

Just look at the different areas of our country. The areas with the highest union "mentality" are the ones with depressed cities facing economic downturn. Meanwhile the South has less of a tradition of manufacturing, and yet now has much better economic growth predicted. For example, when Toyota was looking to build a large facility in the United States, Michigan's governor basically rolled out the red carpet and bragged about the number of skilled workers in the state ready to work. Toyota assessed the situation and determined that there was no way they were going to open a plant in a union State. Only something as "powerful" as a union can manage to lose something that they should have so easily won. And yet I bet that those skilled workers in Michigan that didn't get a job because toyota chose the South instead, would still argue that the unions "got their back". Suckers.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Register on MacRumors! This sidebar will go away, and you'll see fewer ads.
Top Bottom
Back