Apple retail employees organize a union using Android phones to prevent spying | Hacker News Reader

Apple retail employees organize a union using Android phones to prevent spying

futurism.com

75 pointsmarcod33 comments

Clickbait, blogspam, from the original article[1]:

> To avoid detection by managers at the stores, [Apple Store] employees have been meeting in secret and communicating with encrypted messaging, sometimes using Android phones, the competitor to Apple’s iOS operating system, to avoid any possible snooping by Apple.

So it's about a handful of store employees using Android phones (are they even issued an iPhone?) to chat. [1] https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2022/02/18/apple-r...

That's good some employees are putting their foot down.

It shouldn't be a surprise they're on android phones though, in the same way you shouldn't be surprised union supporters don't hold meetings in the in the break room at their job site.

There was a thread with some discussion about this yesterday: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30403315

I feel this might be less about android vs ios and more that if you want a cheap secondary ("burner") phone just for messaging then maybe buying an expensive iphone doesn't make much sense?

what's people's prediction for if the unionization efforts will succeed or not? if it does succeed how much will it effect apple's business/stock price?

It may succeed at a few stores and Apple will shortly close those "under preforming" stores.

Apple has the cash to deal with a union. The issue comes if the union gets greedy (by which I mean actually greedy, not asks-for-living-wage-and-benefits). At what point is it worth it for Apple to keep retail stores open if they're losing (more) money on them? Private sector unions are generally self-regulating; the company can only afford so much, and a balance is struck. In Apple's case, the unionizers may see a lot of upside, given Apple's massive cash reserves, and treat this like a public sector union negotiation.

Best-case: union is formed and negotiations go well, Apple retail employees are now well-paid people who like their jobs.

Worst-case: no more Apple stores.

Edit: to disclose my bias, I favor private sector unions, and despise public-sector unions. Collective bargaining should not control the taxpayer dime.

> Collective bargaining should not control the taxpayer dime.

Why on earth not? An employer is an employer.

Many public sector unions in other countries are very well regarded, such as CUPE in Canada (with 700,000 members, they represent 5% of Canadian workers).

at the very least i believe a public sector union in a democracy shouldn't have the right to strike and keep their jobs. You can't hold the rest of the country hostage like that. The government belongs to the people and the people's right to have a functioning government supersedes your right to strike.

Ok, but who's going to look out for the employment rights of the individuals? Wouldn't you argue that's even more important the larger the employer gets?

The way it tends to work in Canada is that if certain essential workers strike and it harms the public, they can be ordered back to work. Seems like a reasonable place to draw the line.

Not really. If you can just order someone back to work without sitting down at the negotiating table... You're kinda hosed from the Union/labor front.

Like it or not, even the Government is liable to pay a fair wage. If the Public is so darn stingy they won't even vote in people to seriously fund the execution of crucial services, that's their problem.

For sure, it's a balance, which is why back to work legislation is used sparingly. It also has been given a very high bar by recent Supreme Court rulings.

Seems like a hollow threat because you can't actually force anyone to work.

I think all collective bargaining should rely on the power of the workers to stop working and the cost to employers to hire replacements. Any laws that deviate from this and prevent parties from doing so are a morally bankrupt.

You can certainly fine them until they do, which is generally how this works.

I haven't seen that and to be honest, am a little skeptical. If someone quits their job, they can be fined? For how long?

i believe you still can quit your job but the thing you can't do is refuse to work while also preventing the government from hiring someone else to do your job, aka striking

This is how most return-to-work legislation in Canada has historically been structured, and it has worked.

The idea is that private sector pressure will keep Government employees roughly at par with private salaries. I don't mean direct pressure, simply that people won't work there.

The individual right to not be exploited supersedes the collective right to functioning government. This is a natural right that cannot be taken away by anyone including a government. We have a right to not be exploited. We don't have a right to functioning government.

With a private company, the owners can sell their stake or shut down. Citizens can not opt out of paying taxes.

I don't think that changes anything other than making the need for collective bargaining even more important. Those providing the essential services deserve every bit as much representation as those providing non-essential service. Especially since their employer has even more power.

But the taxpayer owners have less power. Seems like a bad system IMHO as a tax payer.

Of course the group who stands to be pushed back on would view it as a "bad system." Just as most employers view unions as a "bad system" however, they have numerous real-world benefits.

Yeah, and numerous real-world costs. Reasonable people can still disagree on the priority and balancing of these costs and benefits as there is rarely a factually correct answer.

> At what point is it worth it for Apple to keep retail stores open if they're losing (more) money on them?

That sentence makes no sense, even with the parenthetical ”more”.

As recently as 2017, “Apple [was] again found to be the world’s top retailer in sales per square foot” [0]

[0] https://9to5mac.com/2017/07/29/apple-top-retailer-per-square...

Define greedy. I always come at this from "getting my cut." When the family business did well our pay always went up.

I mean demanding compensation well above the value they create. Being an Apple Genius is not worth the same salary as a typical lawyer, generally speaking. If a union were to demand that, it would be cheaper to remove the Apple stores.

> I always come at this from "getting my cut." When the family business did well our pay always went up.

Apple's too big for that to work directly. Stock compensation is the best mechanism for larger companies to implement "getting a cut".

That's interesting, why stock compensation over simple profit sharing bonuses? I can think of a number of reasons why the latter could be better for retail workers

Because profit on paper is very malleable. See: Hollywood Accounting. Stock compensation that vests over time both gives an incentive to stay, as well as a direct stake in the growth of the company, rather than a bonus program that can be removed at any time.

Incentive to stay may or may not be a good thing, especially in the context of a retail job. A stock plan can also be removed just as easily. Last, publicly traded companies have well defined definitions of profit, which negates most if not all of the Hollywood accounting issues, where a movie might have 20 legal definitions of profit.

the normal union busting tactics and paying of fines that are considered pennies to them if they are even held accountable by our completely owned and bought out government.

>will succeed or not?

Very likely not. Not only are they very much replaceable from Apple's perspective, ( They don't value Apple Retails employees as they do 10-15 years ago ) I also wonder if paid "really" is the core problem. The problem is Apple retail has been so poorly managed for the past 10+ years some of the effect are only starting to show now. And while Deirdre O’Brien is the best successor since Ron Johnson, I am also not entirely sure she is good enough / best fit for Retail. There are a lot of thing needs fixing ( or reverting ) she has't touched. She used to work in operation under Tim Cook before moving to People and Retail.

Can anyone enlighten me as to what's going on inside Apple's retail?

I assumed these were among some of the best retail jobs one could get. Is it not the case?

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