Apple signs union agreement for Glasgow Apple Store staff
appleinsider.com
appleinsider.com
It makes me wonder, can unionized shops survive when some fast moving competitors(eg. Tesla) are not unionized?
[1]: For more on Musk's SAE level 5 timeline predictions, see https://arstechnica.com/cars/2021/05/tesla-autopilot-directo...
[2]: Tesla says full-self driving is "failure, not fraud" https://www.latimes.com/business/story/2022-12-08/tesla-laws...
[3]: Mercedes-Benz claims their driving pilot system is already SAE level 3: https://gizmodo.com/mercedes-benz-tesla-autonomous-driving-d...
[4]: Mercedes-Benz is so confident about this in fact that they're even willing to accept legal liability for accidents while their system is active: https://insideevs.com/news/575160/mercedes-accepts-legal-res...
[5]: Consumer Reports compares FSD systems: https://www.consumerreports.org/car-safety/cadillac-super-cr...
If you look at how fast they are updating the internals of the cars, you'd see what I was talking about. Their engineering feedback loop is astounding. Things such as moving towards partial castings -> structural pack -> two piece castings etc. within 1.5 years is breakneck speed.
Simplifying the cooling loop design by using a software defined octovalve to eliminate a complete cooling loop in the system is a result of multiple divisions cross collaborating and integrating fast to try a new methodology. Instead of departments fighting with each other to protect their turf(and the end product ultimately suffering), they are breaking down barriers.
The VW ID4 has numerous complaints about their software and reliability. One example I know is that their battery casing is done by an external supplier and the extra mass hurts them in effective range. This is not the mentality that a fast moving company operates on. You bring up mercedes benz but they had to cancel their EQC EV because after so many delays it could not be competitive anymore so instead of launching it they just canceled it. This is after years of it being touted as a Tesla killer. I saw this car years ago at the NY auto show and after years of waiting it amounted to nothing.
You spent your whole comment focusing on their self driving claims while
ignoring the rest of the company.
The VW ID4 has numerous complaints about their software and reliability.
https://teslamotorsclub.com/tmc/threads/software-update-bric...
https://old.reddit.com/r/teslamotors/comments/1033by2/warnin...
That's some impressive software.
But for anyone else reading this try to separate your emotion for "lord elno" and just let the engineering speak for itself.
[1]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m1kHsd3Ocxc
just let the engineering speak for itself
https://www.theverge.com/2020/10/5/21502379/tesla-modely-roo...
https://www.msn.com/en-us/autos/other/tesla-steering-wheels-...
https://teslamotorsclub.com/tmc/threads/bumper-falls-off-in-...
https://www.greencarreports.com/news/1101153_two-thirds-of-e...
https://electrek.co/2020/08/04/tesla-wiper-controls-ruled-il...
https://www.greencarreports.com/news/1098389_tesla-model-s-d...
But for anyone else reading this try to separate your emotion
I'm not saying this is a bad idea and I certainly don't have enough knowledge of the German system to have an objective assessment, but this looks like another example where the law is produced with good intentions but the implementations of such rules are serving some other purpose.
Other than that, I felt like Germany has incredibly good laws for the workers/employees, the working culture there is very healthy and I like it a lot.
If only there was a way for us to get together...as people...to unite as a group. To hold hands and stand up for ourselves. To become so large that the corporations and politicians must notice us and must change.
Fucking Union!
Isn't that what the state is? It has all of that, plus a monopoly on violence, which a union doesn't have.
You already have all the power in the world, YOU, the worker, can decide what you're willing to do, and what you demand in return for it. What more could you possibly need?
What kind of logic is being employed here? why are we treating the common worker like they are so retarded as to "obviously need" a union to make the good decisions for them?
This has nothing to do with how smart the workers are. A single worker does not have the power that a union has. A single worker cannot make demands of the company with any real negotiating power, unless it is a very small company with specialized needs.
For what it’s worth I’m one of those people that is able to negotiate for themselves. I’m a highly skilled robotics engineer and I have to constantly tell recruiters to stop emailing me. I’ve negotiated a position that is exactly what I want to be doing. A dream career. But I’m in a tiny organization, it is basically just me and one investor. The project would be over if I left, so I have a lot of negotiating power. But the same is not true for Amazon warehouse workers or UPS truck drivers or coal miners. I’m sure there are workers who perform better than others but this doesn’t really lead to a huge change in ROI for the company, so even the best UPS truck driver has very little negotiating power. That’s where unions matter.
if UPS can then find enough guys that truly do not care about no aircondition, or feels that the compensation is fair for services rendered(including conditions thereof), is that not fine? do delivery drivers that demands aircondition have a divine right to get their way?
> why must they scheme and plot together?
Because it is effective.
> do delivery drivers that demands aircondition have a divine right to get their way?
Nope. But they absolutely do have the capability to organize. And if they decide that organizing is in their interest, they will do so. Although I do believe unions are generally good, this is not about right or wrong. This is about interests. It is in the interest of the business to pay the workers as little as possible, and it is in the interest of the workers to find ways to raise their pay and other benefits. They can choose to negotiate as individuals or they can choose to form a union.
You seem to be grasping for reasons why they don’t need a union, but I don’t find your position tenable. If there were truly no difference between having a union or not having one, then unions would never exist. The truth is there is a long history of unions and we wouldn’t have the 40 hour work week, paid maternity leave, and other benefits if it weren’t for the hard work of union organizing in this country.
Unions are great at first though.
The act should be repealed so union members have the power to strike regardless of whether union leadership agrees. Many common issues with unions people will share in this thread are experiences had under the Taft-Hartley Act, which is not the natural state of unions but an act of the state to weaken their power.
imagine if you will, that everyone had some personal backbone and responsibility, and had standards for what they would accept. They then communicate this to prospective employers, and would quit if things happen they cannot accept.
if everyone, or majority did this, then companies would be either forced to align, or have no workforce. and IF enough people exists that dont care about working 14 hour shifts 7 days a week, good?
nah, this seems stupid, why should individuals decide? lets rather sign our free will over to unions that by definition simply just exists to shield the "mediocre workers that CLEARLY cant think for themselves"
I worked at a union retail job for three years and saw the pros and cons firsthand.
We had a problem employee who was untouchable regardless if he was completing his job duties (assuming he showed up at all). Eventually this came to a head as he would spend 30min+ in the restroom. To address this they instituted a “log all bathroom breaks” policy _for everyone_ which caused the employee to not show up again.
However, the company kept the policy in place for weeks until I sent a strongly worded email to the union rep (who was unaware he was overseeing our store). He made a visit the next day and the policy was promptly changed.
So while I was glad to have a Union to override such policies I do wonder if the problem employee would have been around for so long without it.
Being in a union doesn't mean you're "untouchable", it just means you can't be fired without hard proof that the worker is not doing what they are hired to do.
Not with some of the one I have had to deal with. There are tons of way to justify not coming to work and some unions representative (not all !) take a posture of « we will fight tooth and nail for every single employee that gets fired regardless of the reason ». This includes having handbooks of all the legal options at your disposal that are hard to counteract by management.
In their views, unions exist as a counter power vs management so they need to fight every single possible decision.
There are some unions that are taking a different approach and that are focusing one or or two issues that are important to them. They will be vocal about those, but be a bit less concerned by the rest unless there is some obvious abuse.
The thing is that it’s really hard to tell which way it’s going to fall.
And it’s also not obvious to tell which approach gives the best results.
As they should. This is the entire point of a union, to act as your collaborative defensive line against your employer. You argument is essentially the same as “well, if we had universal healthcare, homeless/minimum wage people would use it too!”
OP makes it sound like this person was egregiously not doing his job. I’m sorry, but there isn’t a union agreement in the world that lets you No Call/No Show repeatedly and be fine. This is anti-Union FUD.
> In their views, unions exist as a counter power vs management so they need to fight every single possible decision
Yes, exactly. As they should. It’s the exact same logic as employers fighting every Unemployment claim, every workman’s comp claim, etc. If you don’t, you’ve moved the goalposts to a lesser defendable point.
But there are unions agreement that say: if you are fired for any reason, come and see us. Usually the question « how is this justified ? » is not really used as a way of asking « should we help you or not ? », but rather as « which page go the handbook should we leverage to justify that this is definitely an abuse from management ».
The starting point of the discussion is that any firing is necessarily an abuse. And by extension any decision by the company is done to hurt employees.
It would be useful to include the rest of the context of my message instead of snipping out a single line to counter. As I said, of course they do; as they should. Just like it’s in the best interest of the company to assume all employees are scamming, scummy liars; it’s in the best interest of the Union to assume the employer is a money-hungry uncaring entity focused on maximizing its profit. Why should one side shoot themselves in the foot while the other maximizes their advantage? That doesn’t change the fact that if the employee actually wasn’t coming into work, was abusing privileges or was somehow abusive they are going to be fired; so what’s the problem?
Is this antagonistic? Sure. But we’re well past companies giving respect to employees and employees owing loyalty to employers. And, here’s the important bit: it wasn’t the employees that started nor perpetuated it.
This process needs to be followed for termination.
Problem is, some middle-management type decides they want to fire a person (for cause), and doesn't follow the process. And even if they are correct in the substance of their action (ie: bad employee), they get stopped because they don't follow the agreed procedure.
So you have an incompetent manager trying to fire an incompetent employee, and this turns into the FUD of "unions protect bad employees!" When the reality is that the management is incompetent, and probably didn't even read the Collective Agreement.
Once he did completely stop showing up he was still on the schedule for months due to union contract stipulations as he was full-time.
The bathroom policy was put in place after having multiple meetings with the district manager.
> The bathroom policy was put in place after having multiple meetings with the district manager.
Did he have health issues? I have never seen a healthy adult hide in the Bathroom. Is this something that happens? Has an effort been made to figure out whats wrong with them?
I have also had a junior colleague and a family member go through stomach related issues where they required over 100 days of sick leave and 4 surgeries. If they were working for amazon warehouse, they'd be disposed of quickly.
I definately dont want to work for a company that timea how long I spend taking a shit.
For every 'lazy' or 'unproductive' employee i've seen, I can name two that create negative productivity for an entire team through office politics and maneuvering.
They are much more damaging and management never seems to catch on!
Is there a reason to assume the same ratio exists across all businesses?
I suspect that rank and file employees are better at identifying the second problem than managers are. What it second problem is less common in places where unions are present? Maybe it's a tradeoff, you gain A but you loose B.
I am just saying this is never examined
Pretty cozy benefits for retail work which is thanks to the union.
At the same time multiple part time workers, such as myself, would pick up slack or work OT due to these unmotivated workers. It definitely lead to a weird culture.
High level, there’s room to improve where workers have a decent work experience and investors still see some benefit (even if it’s less than they would like to maximize for). These are not binary decisions.
Isn't this part of the problem? It's managements problem to deal with, not yours, and you shouldn't need to 'pick up the slack.' Sure there are times when it makes more sense to just do it, but if it was consistent, and everyone else was picking up the slack, the union wasn't the only problem; Everyone that was constantly enabling this behaviour was at least partially responsible too. Once in a while is fine, but eventually you need to go to management and put your foot down.
And isn't it interesting that if you did put your foot down, it's your union that would also be protecting you against retaliation from management?
But unfortunately in 2023 we're now in a state where company leads don't respect their workers anymore and think they can get off with any kind of abuse, disrespect and exploitation. Time to remind them about the past I think.
If you are a capital owner, I can see why unions are bad. If you are a worker,(i.e. 99.9% of people), I have no idea why you wouldn't want unions.
For example, if a group of retail employees forms a new local for a large office worker union, the large union may not put much effort or many resources into achieving a 'good agreement' for the retail employees (because it's not worth the prospective increase in dues). Then, the 'good employees' will leave out of frustration, and only 'bad apples' remain, until the retailer shutters the store for under-performance.
The worst case scenario is bad employees harming other employees or the public. People who create a horrible workplace for others, people who harm the people the company or organization is meant to serve, but can't be fired.
Having robust policies to make it clear this won't happen and is not a goal would go a long way towards countering anti-union sentiment.
A union can get a monopoly over a certain employer, such that all hires are required to join the union or they don't get the job. Union dues can be half the annual salary with no benefit to the union member unless they remain a member for 10-20 years. Though this practice is technically illegal, it goes on without any Labor Department intervention. Why would you want to give up half your salary for no benefit until you've been working for years?
Come on, is that really the honest truth? What occupation or union has union dues at 50% of salary?
In the US, UAW's dues max out around ~1.5% of salary (or an hourly approximate equivalent), the teachers union maxes out at 1.6% of salary (highest possible dues cap out at $55/month max), the nursing union dues cap out at $65/month, our local teamsters are approximately ~1.45% of salary ($50/month for someone at a $20/hr job), and so on.
The "expensive Union Dues" mess is almost always FUD or outright lies. Union dues are usually pretty modest.
Ok, I understand that this is presumably an experience you had in your life once, but like, could you simply not hold a bad opinion against all labour rights forever, just because one person told you an (pretty obvious) blatant lie one time?
[1] https://freebeacon.com/issues/report-union-presidents-paid-c...
2) If you are an employee, you'll pay higher prices in other places.
Unions are cancer. If I wanted socialism, I'd have stayed in my shithole country
In my friends union shop, the union prohibits working from home because >50% of union members have to do hands on work and are jealous of the computer workers. The majority had the votes so the union fought against WFH, and management caved.
I think as engineers we like optimizing things. It feels almost intrinsically desirable for systems we encounter to be running well. And that gives us a level of sympathy for management's needs and goals that most unionized workers would interpret as betrayal.
When it comes to things like this, Glasgow is the epitome of "fuck around and find out".
As a non-UK-an, can I ask what happened?
https://www.cambridge.org/core/services/aop-cambridge-core/c...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_Clydeside
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mary_Barbour
and more recently,
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nae_Pasaran
You should watch that last one, when you get a chance.
Edit: In the mid-1980s when South African Apartheid was a matter of global protest, Glasgow City Council renamed St George's Place in the centre of Glasgow to Nelson Mandela Place, just to mess with the South African Consulate.
Glasgow is a wonderful city full of wonderful people, but don't piss them off.
The store is in the centre of Glasgow, by 2030 almost all of that area will be residential. Almost all the manufacturing jobs have gone. Docks have gone. Everything is gone. Govt and retail were the only major employers, retail is now going too (employee density of places outside the city is a fraction of what is was). This is stupid, the pay is fine for what it is, and Apple can and will just close the store.
Btw, my family is from Glasgow, one of my relatives was a Red Clydeside leader, the labour movement today is worlds away from what it was then. All the old trade unionists began moving away in the 60s. Middle-class people moved in seeking the status of a working-class movement, needless confrontation ramped up, and the leaders lost all their member's jobs.
Glasgow is one of the purest cautionary tales about the dangers of unions (and, to be clear, this was never a question for the early union leaders...unions were supposed to be about collaboration, not confrontation, all the countries in Europe that have collaborative unions have workers in industry, all the ones that had confrontational unions don't...it is that simple).
Just like every other city in the UK. Gosh, I wonder what the common factor could be, eh?
Apple: "Yes."
"...by offering better benefits to other stores employees?"
Apple: "Yes. We're giving them nicer stuff than we gave you. This is why you shouldn't unionize."
"Hmm. By unionizing just our one store, we improved benefits for us, but also for ALL the non-union employees in the company?!"
Apple: "er....no"
"Well, if we hadn't unionized, we wouldn't have gotten better benefits, and you only improved their benefits to 'punish' us..."
Apple: "no, wait..."
"uuuunnnHHH! If we unionize another store, will you punish us harder, daddy!?"
Apple: >:(
Also they've been raising cost of goods for the last five years without any pressure from the unions. While wages of Apple store staff have been falling in relative terms. So I do not believe anything would change.
(to be clear, I'm not applauding Apple's efforts here at all, just observing an interesting, awkward, but mostly hilarious response)
I don't think there's really much of a downside to unionisation here. It's not like one staff member asking to be paid more was ever going to happen being such a small cog in such a big machine.
This thread started off from the perspective of an apple investor not a retail employee. As an investor, I think there is a real downside to unionization.
Might be in other cases, but in this case it's about low pay, and shitty shift patterns:
> Reportedly, retail staff at Apple Glasgow earn 12 ($15) per hour. Workers at the store say that low wages, plus unfair shift patterns and a lack of pay transparency have prompted the move toward unionization.
https://appleinsider.com/articles/22/06/10/glasgow-apple-sto...
They seem to also have asked for ways to enable better communication to corporate but it seems to have fallen on deaf ears, even their colleagues in other countries have ways but no one listens:
> "In the UK, Apple have staff forums, but these are continually shown to be ineffectual and feedback is ignored," one anonymous worker told the Glasgow Evening Times. "It is a one-way conversation."
I guess the conclusion is that people tried, Apple didn't want to, so now the workers forced them to listen.
I hope workers in other countries are following what's happening here and realize they have more power than what they think.
Lots of talk about family, and close knit this, and "it's my job to support them" that. The usual self-righteous linkedin bullshit, but unusually brazen given someone was killed and a couple people injured.
I remember thinking "if they're so 'supported' by one of the world's richest companies, why do so many of them want to unionize?"
$15/hour for high-end retail is peanuts in almost any urban area. Given how much cash Apple has, and how fast they continue to accumulate it, they can absolutely afford to pay a livable wage to their retail employees.
You may not know a lot about Glasgow either, it isn't like "any urban area". It is one of the poorest places in the UK, massive opioid problem, lowest life expectancy in the UK (in the poorest areas), derelict housing everywhere, highest rate of refugees per capita, high levels of violent crime (amazingly, this has got substantially better and it is still terrible by the metric of anyone familiar with crime in other countries)...the only big employers are govt and retail, this compares well with low-skill govt work. You cannot compare this to any city in the US either, maybe Detroit or somewhere? But the US is just another world relative to Europe (Glasgow is more like somewhere like rural West Virginia...but a city).
Glasgow isn't like it used to be. Scotland in general is one of the wealthier of the UK outside of the SE.
The poor areas are mostly in Wales and the North.
I live in Scotland near Glasgow, my family is from there, I have been there frequently over the span of decades. Parts of it are wealthy, but the vast majority is not. Almost everyone who can leave when they are young, does leave...that speaks for itself (I grew up in Scotland, I know maybe 40-50 people who grew up in Glasgow...I cannot recall one person who still lives there, it happens but not by choice). And if you look at any statistic, it is poor (and the heavily reliance on govt spending inc. jobs).
Scotland is not wealthy "in general" at all (again, before you reply: I have lived there for over two decades). Edinburgh is relatively wealthy, it is at the top of cities outside London. Aberdeen is wealthy because of oil. But the rest of the country is not.
And even then, these stats are misleading. Edinburgh has individuals who drag up the average (to a large extent, these people do not exist in Glasgow...there is no "upside" scenario) but if you look at the worst areas of Edinburgh, they are worse than anywhere in the UK. This kind of grinding poverty is unique to Scotland and hasn't changed. In fact, one of the lowest life expectancy neighbourhoods in Europe (iirc, it was under 60...and this was in 2005) was in Edinburgh. They redistricted the area (they actually knocked down almost all the housing in the worst area) so it dropped out of the stats, but those areas still exist.
It isn't like the North-East either. In the North-East you have high levels of deprivation but you see less harm than in Scotland. If you look at the worst places in the UK for life expectancy - https://www.statista.com/statistics/296698/local-areas-with-... - almost all of them are in Scotland. The only place that really compares in England is Blackpool and possibly Sunderland, both places are regarded as exceptional...and you see it in: Ayrshire, Lanarkshire, Glasgow, Dundee, etc. Blackpool is a tiny place, it is all over Scotland.
Btw, this is one of the common misconceptions from people online who have only ever been to Scotland on holiday. Cities like Edinburgh are more segregated than any other city in the UK. I know people who lived in Edinburgh for years (I went to university there), and you take them into the areas for locals (often down a side street near a tourist area) and they have never seen anything like it (the only place I have been that compares is public housing in Milan and rural Eastern Europe, I haven't seen anywhere in the UK like it).
It's a bit odd to claim that government and retail are only big employers given the presence of the JP Morgan, Barclays, SSE etc.
It's true that the UK's policy of pursuing a service based economy has destroyed what was a fairly well paying industrial/manufacturing sector. Recent reports seem to indicate that despite record low unemployment, living standards of the average person are set to drop below much of eastern europe; despite being a much wealthier country.
They've already communicated their needs (wages are too low), and you've already dismissed their concerns. Your comment here is kind of proving exactly why Apple employees so desperately need to unionize -- they aren't going to get fairer wages any other way.