Just goes to show how effective unionizing is. Power to those workers! They're a key part in making Apple one of the most valuable companies in the world. They deserve a fair share.
Companies hate unions because they increase labor costs and benefits.
Does anyone really think corporate anti-union talking points are in their workers' best interest?
Unions have their faults (e.g. bureaucracy), but corporations aren't fighting them for their employees' benefit.
Yes, usually at least half the workforce.
But but but the monthly dues!!!
https://www.reuters.com/world/us/biden-signs-bill-block-us-r...
> WASHINGTON, Dec 2 (Reuters) - President Joe Biden signed legislation Friday to block a national U.S. railroad strike that could have devastated the American economy.
And of course, it's all for our own good!
Sure. What do the C-suite employees stand to gain from it other than a whole new set of headaches when they have to deal with the union?
But they are. The long-term profitability of the company is essential for ensuring the jobs of everyone. History is filled with the bankruptcies of unionized companies where the workers asked for more than what the market would support.
I hate to rain on your parade, but in my experience the union leadership were much more like a parallel track of management. They definitely played favorites and took sides in political battles to protect some people and hurt others. Everyone dreams that the unions will be neutral protectors of the workers. That wasn't what I saw.
Corporations are Moloch. They do not have human interests in mine. They are setup to grow and spread like cancer. Unions at least give some grounding back to human needs rather than the never ending pursuit of profit.
Long-term profitability is the goal of company management? In my experience that’s often not the case. Short term profit going straight to shareholder dividend, seeking a sale at the highest possible price… Maybe I’m too cynical but it feels like these are the primary goals of corporate America these days. Boost, boost, boost then cash out. If anything a unionized workforce can help keep management on the straight and narrow path to long term profitability because unions make the short term cashouts more difficult.
I’m not going to try to claim that all union management is wonderful but a great number of employees in the US would still be in a better place represented by selfish, inefficient union bosses than left to the company’s whims.
Corruption, protecting shit employees from being fired, seniority preference over merit, politics, wage caps for individual contributors (not just wage floors), dues, inefficient administrative overhead, to name a few others.
For a lot of workers, especially knowledge workers and pro services, the value proposition doesn’t make sense.
Companies fight unions for the efficiency of the machine, which may or may not benefit employees (depends on context, right?). Employees fight unions because the value prop looks like shit in many cases - at best a bargain with the devil - circumstances need to be pretty bad to make the deal, or the union needs to have captured the right to work (at company or industry) already.
I say all this as someone with a small union pension waiting for me and as someone who managed union employees. I’ve seen the good, the bad, and the ugly with unions.
yeah, there's no needs for unions in tech. The most ambitious are spending 2-3 years at a job, switching jobs, and getting 20%+ pay raises as well as negotiating stock benefits and all the like. A union would do nothing for that kind of worker that they can't do in a matter of weeks by walking.
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Neither are the people unionizing here...
They have stores in 26 countries.
I didn't realize that anyone at Apple was making iPhones on the line. Last I heard it was primarily Foxconn, along with a few other companies. When did Apple get involved in the manufacture of them?
If you’re in a fight and you have a weapon but your opponent is unarmed, of course you would oppose your opponent being given a weapon as that’s not in your best interest. Your opponent may see things differently, just as the employer and employees see things differently in this situation. Apple's opponent is currently unarmed, and Apple doesn't want to see them armed with the weapon of collective bargaining.
In the old days, when First International and IWW was created, unionization efforts were to "set the bosses house on fire, with them in it", "pass out rifles to all workers and shoot up the bosses house", assaults, bombs.. you name it.
That's also where we have the paramilitary force, Pinkertons. They were hired by the bosses to do the same thing to the union organizers.
These companies have NO problem violating the meager federal law protections for workers. And to boot, there's basically no penalties. When things get bad enough, just watch for the "whoopsies", subvert sabotage, and direct violence against bosses and against property.
Companies have forgotten about the older pact with unions to remove violence, and then now commit economic violence (destitution, starvation, etc). Maybe they should be reminded?
This is a new one. Thanks for sharing...
Not that I’m fully endorsing unions. In my particular part of the world (Netherlands) unions lack broad support but are the only laborers party bargaining collective labour agreements. The good thing is that those agreements are inclusive. The fun is where the unions members interest differ from genpop. You get things like union contributions paid for by employers, or worse like agreements that favor the old whom are more likely to be a member.
> Companies have forgotten about the older pact with unions to remove violence, and then now commit economic violence (destitution, starvation, etc). Maybe they should be reminded?
And perhaps companies can go back to WHY the NLRB was created, and what the before-times was like. I particularly don't want to go back to that.
And you can be reminded with a history lesson and education, and not shooting up the bosses house. You all also broke HN guidance by assuming the worst of me too.
And the thing is that even people in dark corners usually don’t react darkly. That’s pretty much what saves civilization imho. That even the bottom 1% doesn’t go all out on the rest. People stand a lot of abuse and still keep their head up. I agree that workers right shouldn’t be an afterthought.
I AM advocating education, by both employees and companies' legal council. Go study your union history. Teach it to colleagues. Understand your rights as non-union worker and union worker. And, unionize. (A company would consider that violent, given how they respond with illegal actions.)
And, you'd be surprised just how effective a PEACEFUL protest at the sidewalk at the bosses' house is. Ive seen a variation of that with a peaceful protest of our mayor doing dumb shit. The grievances got solved real quick.
So what did you mean by "Maybe they should be reminded?"
> I AM advocating education, by both employees and companies' legal council.
Reminding people of the "history" that violence and terrorism have (occasionally, arguably) been effective still comes across as an implicit threat. If you were advocating violence but trying to disingenuously pretend otherwise, you would have used the exact same words. I can and will assume good faith here, but you need to be a lot more careful about the implications of what you're saying here. Moreover, that kind of rhetoric normalizes the use of violence and terrorism to achieve social/economic/political goals.
At any rate, while we are having a dispassionate discussion of history, I would also point out that violence doesn't always work out for the left/labor side of the equation. Sometimes populists use public fear of that terrorism to justify right-wing authoritarian regimes. Sometimes those regimes start throwing the leftists out of helicopters. Sometimes catastrophic world wars break out between leftist-revolutionary dictatorships and right-populist dictatorships. And to me, the moral of that long and bloody story is that you do not normalize or advocate violence as a means of achieving social/economic/political goals.
Which is still around, though now a child company of Securitas.
In the USA. It is different in other countries, it could be better in the USA also.
owners: think you can negotiate? get fucked, workers!
noble bystander: hey, these workers are a key part of the value creation equation here!!
Deng Xiaoping took away the right to go onstrike because "the communist party is owned by the worker and represents the best interest of the workers".
Now there is one union - NTUC, and it's the only legal union.
I suspect that Apple looked back at what brought them to that point when they started growing again. I don't know what their thoughts regarding the specialized stores were, but I wouldn't be surprised if they blamed the larger retailers for the acceleration of their earlier downfall. Having your product first shoved to the back corner, while being shunned by salespeople who knew nothing of the product, then removed from the shelves altogether does not inspire confidence in consumers. Sure, those retailers may have been picking up Apple products when Apple turned around ... but what is to prevent a replay of the late 1990's if things cooled down again?
What I am going to suggest is that the Apple's popularity in your country is built upon Apple's popularity in other countries. While that popularity may not be the product of the Apple Store, Apple's ability to sustain that popularity likely is.
https://www.opensecrets.org/elections-overview/top-organizat...
Per [0] Oracle has ~100,000 employees and $6B in income. Per [1] the United Brotherhood of Carpenters has ~500,000 members; per [2] (yes, I'm aware this doesn't cover all of the occupations represented by the union, and some members will not be in the US) they have a mean income of ~$60,000, meaning the total income represented by the union could be ~$30B. That the union barely edges Oracle for political spending suggest that they punching well below their weight, relative to income.
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oracle_Corporation [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Brotherhood_of_Carpente... [2] https://www.bls.gov/oes/current/oes472031.htm
In reality, both organizations know that at the scale they operate (super-national), one of the legitimate means to advocate for their constituents' interests is to ~~bribe lawmakers~~ make political contributions, so they dedicate some of their resources to that.
I never once read or had a discussion about the quality of the employees.
I suppose employees are the people making the marketing plans, but these aren't the people unionizing.
What are you talking about? Apple is all over reddit, snapchat, instagram, facebook, TV/sports/youtube, they likely astroturf/hire reputation management on reddit, HN, and twitter.
The king of marketing doesnt stop, they double down.