The next union organizing wave is at Apple
cnn.com
cnn.com
Bout time workers started reminding companies that you need us.
If they laid off people they needed they'll find out soon enough without any blow-harding.
While I agree that "let's remind them why they need us" sounds a bit too pitchforky, I believe the background problem is that of mixing long-term considerations (a motivated workforce and a solid business plan) with short-term ones (quick ROI, appeasing shareholders). I believe that unions help focus on the employee side of the longer-term problem.
Execs don't think about long time horizons. Ever.
Do you think companies are all firing people all the time and being destroyed in 2, say, years in real life? How have companies lasted more than 2 years? Or do you think no company is more than 2 years old?
In fact, short term gains is basically the reason private equity firms exist - extracting what value can be extracted from a company and then letting it die.
Teacher unions have made the American public education system the envy of the world.
Airline unions have made flying safe, smooth, affordable and reliable.
Police and prison guard unions have made our legal and penal system trustworthy, fair and equitable.
I look forward to continuing the excellent track record of American unions improving everything for everyone.
Strong unions (led by workers) leverage labor power for a better society. Weak unions (led by companies and bureaucrats) leverage hollow gestures and brew distrust.
A union that does not strike isn't a union so much as a bureaucracy created to extract money from labour.
- The American auto industry was quite a wonder in its heyday, and that was also when unions reigned. The decline was correlated with the 1970s oil supply shocks, not union organizing
- The best American states for education really are pretty union heavy ones like Massachussetts, New Jersey, etc. Same states with highest teacher pay and good union teacher job conditions are the ones with high student achievement. Funny that.
- I've been flying in America for decades and it's fine? Like, grow up? Airline peanuts come in funny little bags and sometimes flights are delayed, but all in all it's a pretty marvellous system that charges relatively little for teleporting you around the country.
The absolute worst part of the "Apple experience" is the Apple Store. When you enter, you see a crowd of people acting like zombies (you become one too as soon as you enter) and "Geniuses" scurrying around, pretending to be busy. I despise the experience of approaching a random teenager in a blue T-shirt, only to be told that they're too busy and that I need to find another "Genius."
I can't understand what was wrong with a counter and a queue. Why can't they add at least one?
It really feels like the whole process could be organized with half the staff and I hope that the whole union discussions at least create some pressure to introduce "self-checkout" machines there.
There is self-checkout with the Apple Store app, but they have recently made it harder than it needs to be. I think either location services has to be enabled for the app, or you have to find and scan a hidden round QR-like code at the hidden checkout station to bring up the hidden checkout screen.
(Come on Tim Cook, do you really not want my money anymore??)
Once the hidden checkout screen actually appears, the actual scan and purchase process works fine, and they seem to have fixed the issue where it was too easy to scan the same item twice.
The other thing you can do of course is preorder on store.apple.com and then check in when you arrive, either using the app or finding the person with an iPad, usually near the door, who checks people in.