Apple employees at a Baltimore-area (Towson) store have voted to unionize, making it the first of the company’s 270-plus stores in the United States to join a union.
Tripp Mickle and Noam Scheiber for The New York Tims:
In the election, 65 employees at Apple’s store in Towson, Md., voted in favor of being represented by the union, known as the Apple Coalition of Organized Retail Employees, while 33 voted against. It will be part of the International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers, an industrial trade union that represents over 300,000 employees.
“I applaud the courage displayed by CORE members at the Apple store in Towson for achieving this historic victory,” Robert Martinez Jr., president of IAM International, said in a statement. “They made a huge sacrifice for thousands of Apple employees across the nation who had all eyes on this election.”
Tyra Reeder, a technical specialist who has worked at the Towson store a little over six months, said that she was “elated” with the outcome and that she hoped a union would help increase workers’ compensation; stabilize the store’s scheduling, which has been strained by recent Covid-19 cases; and make it easier for workers to advance within the company.
MacDailyNews Take: Apple retail workers are already, and have long been, among the highest paid retail workers around the world. It will not get easier for these employees bound under a union contract to advance, it will get much more difficult, if not impossible.
Apple Towson Town Center staffers have voted to learn their lessons the hard way.
See also:
• Apple to improve scheduling flexibility for retail workers – June 2, 2022
• Apple boosts starting pay for U.S. retail workers to $22 per hour – May 26, 2022
• Apple retail chief O’Brien pushes back against unions in new video to retail staff – May 25, 2022
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It is rather interesting that the most left-leaning corporations are most vehemently opposed to unions.
SMART people are opposed to unions. This isn’t 1922. There are plenty of labor laws today. More than enough, in fact.
The only thing Apple employees at this unfortunate store near the Baltimore shithole will get is LESS pay via siphoned off “union dues,” LESS chance of advancement, and MORE mediocre employees who can’t easily be dismissed because they SUCK.
Apple should immediately recategorize staff at this store as contractors, quashing unionization with finality, sending a message to the stupid employees at all other Apple retail stores.
The Towson retail store will quickly become Apple’s absolute worst store if it ever gets to the point where a union contract is agreed upon (don’t bet on it.)
Baltimore; union, left…makes sense.
As opposed to Flyover Town, served not by an Apple store or healthy Main Steet businesses but instead by WallyWorld’s Chinese Emporium on the outskirts of town? If you don’t like the UNITED States, there are plenty of nations ruled by a single right wing regime. Tell us how you like it there, Fact/Mill/whatever your name is today.
Come back when you have something meaningful to say.
If you don’t like the UNITED States, there are plenty of nations ruled by a single right wing .
Both China and Russia are the political’s left wing love interest; Bernie Sanders own words
“Facts” above describes Baltimore as a “Shithole”.
Quiz us all this: Is Baltimore part of the USA or isn’t it?
Now tell us, dear site editors, why you allow divisionist political rhetoric of any kind on a Mac site. The Mac is an international concern and most people who actually use Macs are tired of your incessant scorched earth politics.
By the way, it’s hilarious to pretend unions aren’t required in this era when less than 1% of the population, comprised mainly of Cook style managers and brats that inherited their parents wealth, literally buy congress to further line their pockets while real wages for the working class have trailed inflation since the 1960’s. Meanwhile most corporations and their insiders club of execs pay little or zero taxes whatsoever. What do YOU propose is an appropriate counterweight to Timmy stuffing billions of shareholders and workers money into his private Swiss bank account? You can paste GOP talking points all you want, they are owned by the likes of Cook. What reform would give the middle class the ability to thrive instead of slipping into poverty while the gilded oligarchs play? Dinner in Davos, tennis in Cayman, anyone? Hello MDN. GAFC
Trying (and failing) to “screw the man” by spiting yourself is not intelligent, but these are retail schlubs we’re talking about; preyed upon by corrupt union organizers, as always, so it’s not surprising.
Follow the money.
How much money do the Fortune 500 CEOs have in their personal accounts?
Compare that to the net worth of all living union organizers.
Cook alone scraped over a billion for himself. That overcompensation could support 10,000 families in the USA with money to spare.
But no, you love feudalism. Your party loves nothing more than fool simpletons like you to imagine trickledown could work. A democratic structure like a union, where people invested in the daily operations of the business vote on how to coordinate may not be simple as you like everything to be, but it provides better outcomes.
Corporations are non democratic, unions at least try to give workers a voice. Why does that threaten you, bitter old man?
Little to no taxes? The top 1% pay 40% of all income taxes, top 10% pay 71% of all income taxes. Bottom 50% pay 2.8%.
Look at the total tax instead of just personal income taxes. When a US CEO makes (or self-selects) over 250 times the salary of his average professional employee, a reasonable person would expect he should pay about 250 times as much in income tax. But he doesn’t.
https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/proxy/E0Ronxg6x-_0ZtxLAIJuF7iIfR6nKGCajwLreM08cWDXgXUi35sgxp9A0N3IsA3_J1R3jx3CipEJ_toJjS_Wz40WcleJWbSCCNYDClWKTKdrNSRyJRIb0xiP7w-TvnhO=w1200-h630-p-k-no-nu
In fact, the term “income” gets interesting if you have a good team of financial managers. According to the 2017 CBO report “The Distribution of Household Income”, the top 1% of households paid an estimated 32% rate on wage income, but not their total income. They paid far less taxes on other proceeds such as capital gains, which made up approximately 66% of cash flow to the top households before legal wealth transfers and avoidance, tax credits and rebates that they collect. It’s complicated because well paid lobbyists for them made it so. You can plainly see who benefits, and who struggles to make ends meet.
Then there is the other obvious flaw in the rich victim narrative: retirees and children don’t pay income taxes because they have no labor income. Disabled people or injured veterans might, through no fault of their own, hold low-earning jobs that barely cover their high medical expenses. Those who demand that everyone must pay income taxes need to wake up to reality. There are very good reasons the bottom 50% don’t pay hardly any income taxes. Almost everyone, however, does pay sales taxes, property taxes, payroll taxes, tariffs, licenses and direct fees for the services everyone receives from the government.
Any union that helps rebalance the playing field is doing good. Otherwise, the current gilded age will only become more obscenely unbalanced between the elite and the poor. This is why so many formerly comfortable middle class are bitter. If not a democratic labor union or better regulation from a more comprehensive democratic government oversight, what is the correct means of keeping Cook and other corporate leaders from taking more and more of the pie for themselves? Got a suggestion?