It was reported on May 30, Beijing time that the wave of unionization in the United States is spreading to the technology industry. Under the influence of the epidemic and inflationary pressure, the retail employees of the technology giant are seeking to form trade unions to improve their working conditions, but they have been suppressed by their employers. As a leading enterprise in the technology industry, Apple's retail store employees are also trying to form trade unions.
However, the efforts of Apple's first unionized retail store suffered a temporary failure, which may show the difficult prospects faced by the trade unions in the technology industry.
Retail trade unions frustrated
Sydney Rhodes is an employee of Apple's Atlanta retail store. She is leading the employees of the store to form a labor union. But now she is getting more and more depressed. She sat at a hotel conference table opposite the apple store in Atlanta and listened to the leaders. Her boss suggested to 12 colleagues that they should be glad that they were paid more than other retail employees.
Just before Apple's Atlanta retail store voted to join the CWA, Rhodes' boss raised a series of objections at an off-site meeting this month. One of them was that Apple offered higher salaries to retail employees. Rhodes, a 26 year old trade union organizer, thinks Apple pay's hourly salary is about $4 higher than other stores, which is not enough.
Union organizer Roz
Before her recent promotion, she worked back and forth between two part-time jobs to support herself: one was to help customers use iphone The other is to deliver the Amazon package to the loading box of FedEx night shift. She supports the establishment of trade unions because she believes that trade unions can raise hourly wages and increase full-time opportunities for employees who spend most of their time part-time.
In April this year, Rhodes' support for the trade union prompted 70% of the store's more than 100 employees to support the trade union election. However, when her boss countered the union effort at the dinner at the Sheraton Hotel, she could feel that the support began to waver.
"Whenever someone asks me a question," she said, "he will put forward a point of view that trade unions do not apply to us at all."
This talk hit the heart of a labor dispute that affected 272 Apple stores in the United States. Two decades after redefining the retail industry with elegant architectural design and protocol technical support, apple is fighting the latest trend in the industry: trade union organization.
Rhodes and her colleagues were expected to be the first Apple store to vote to join the Union on Thursday, but they suspended the election late last week. Union leaders said that Apple stores in Taosen, Maryland and New York City Central Station are expected to hold voting in the coming weeks, and more than 20 stores have expressed interest in establishing unions.
Countermeasures of apple
The labor movement worries Apple executives, who are trying to cultivate employees and customers' love for apple. The labor union may end Apple's 20-year history of selling $1000 mobile phones through happy salespeople, adding luster to the apple brand. Apple also said that the labor union may also increase operating costs and hinder the launch of new products.
Apple has hired littler Mendelson, an employment law firm, to weaken the trade union movement. It also provides store managers with talking points, including the possible reduction of promotional activities and inflexible working hours caused by the establishment of trade unions. Last week, Apple executives urged employees not to unionize and said they would raise their hourly salary from $20 to $22.
"I fear that this will mean placing another organization in our relationship that lacks in-depth knowledge of apple or our business." Deirdre O'Brien, Apple's head of retail business and human relations, said in a video this week that the video was sent to many of Apple's approximately 65000 retail employees.
O'Brien, Apple Retail Director
Apple spokesman joshrosenstock declined to allow O'Brien and Cumberland store manager Alex Burrus to be interviewed. Apple's Cumberland store is about 10 miles from downtown Atlanta. Employees who hold a wait-and-see attitude or oppose the trade union are also reluctant to be interviewed.
Rosenstock said in a statement that Apple provides many benefits for retail employees, including medical care, tuition reimbursement and family leave. "We attach great importance to what they have brought to apple." He said.
Why trade unions
Although online orders have weakened the importance of Apple stores, Apple has fought back against the demand for retail employees to form unions. According to Loup ventures, a technology research company, about 6% of Apple's sales come from retail stores, about half of what it was before the outbreak.
Although the financial importance of stores is declining, employees such as Rhodes regard them as the physical connection between apple and the wider world. She started working at apple because she liked its products. At the age of 16, she bought her first iPhone with the money she earned working at McDonald's. She fell in love with apple and watched the product launch for hours to satisfy her growing interest in "the way they work".
Rhodes said that when the outbreak broke out, she was grateful that Apple was one of the first companies to send employees home. Frank Howard, the manager of the Cumberland store at that time, said that the employees of the store were not required to do any work within a few months, and they were paid according to their wages. Later, apple provided them with a computer and asked them to provide remote sales and technical support.
"We have experienced the COVID-19, and you have made a lot of money," Rhodes said, referring to apple, whose profit increased to $95billion in fiscal year 2021, an increase of 71% over the previous fiscal year before the epidemic. "Why can't we get more compensation?"
Derrick Bowles, a colleague of Rhodes in Atlanta, is listening to a podcast about the formation of a union at Amazon's Bessemer warehouse in Alabama. As a Genius Bar technician, his salary increase was limited to 2%, which was not enough to keep pace with inflation. After calculation, after deducting inflation, his hourly income decreased by 15 cents, so he contacted CWA and began to organize a trade union movement.
Rhodes and Bowles (right)
Bowles first recruited experienced colleagues. He has worked at Apple for 10 years and is most familiar with how Apple reduces its support for retail business. For example, apple rented the entire bowling alley to hold a party in 2010, but this benefit was later replaced by Christmas gifts such as backpacks. One year, Bowles said, employees received a printed copy of Apple's retail creed written on thick cardboard and a T-shirt.
"The next year, we confiscated all our Christmas gifts." He said
Rhodes said she was suspicious of the union at first, but later developed a good impression. She recently got a promotion and got a full-time job at $26 an hour, but it was only after a colleague with 14 years of work experience left. Most of her colleagues are part-time, working less than 30 hours a week. She believes unions can help create more full-time jobs.
They drafted a letter outlining the goals they want to achieve, including fair pay, career development opportunities, improved benefits, and a greater voice in safety policies related to COVID-19. They conducted a survey on whether employees should hold a union vote, and got twice the support. After that, Bowles handed out a red wristband that said "work together".
"Working together" Wristband
Bowers said that in May this year, store managers stepped up their counterattack. They posted a letter from an employee of the central station store in the lounge, who expressed his opposition to the trade union.
"We are not an Amazon warehouse. Unlike them, they do not have sick leave or toilet time during the epidemic," the employee wrote. "We are not a Starbucks with insufficient staff." The employee said that he understood the people's call for "more funds", but "the trade union cannot provide any guarantee".
According to a complaint submitted to the National Labor Relations Commission, the company managers also made anti union remarks in the morning employee briefing. In a statement on the morning meeting sent to reporters, Bowles said that apple "extended its black hand to the trade union election".
Employee differentiation
These pressures have divided employees. On a recent Sunday night, at the apple Cumberland Shopping Center store, about 15 employees wore blue T-shirts with white apple logo and accompanied customers to browse rows of colorful watch bands. However, none of the employees wore "work together" wristbands.
As Apple employees' support for the Union began to waver in Atlanta, tauson and union leaders in New York said they could still win the election. They pointed out that Amazon warehouse workers' similar efforts in Bessemer failed, but the subsequent union election in Staten Island succeeded.
"This is not star wars. If the rebels win, the matter will be solved perfectly," said David DiMaria, the organizer of the trade union. On behalf of the International Association of Machinists and aerospace workers, he provided suggestions to the employees of the Taosen store. "We thank the Atlanta store for all the information it provided and let us know what would happen. We still feel very good."
Rhodes said that just a few days before the vote, COVID-19 spread through some employees of the Cumberland shopping center. Apple did not comment on the outbreak. The company requires employees to wear masks in stores. Rhodes hopes this setback will remind colleagues of the value that trade unions can provide and give them a voice in health-related decisions.
Less than 24 hours later, the trade union organization committee decided to suspend the voting. In a statement, union organizers accused apple of creating an environment of fear and coercion. Bowles said he had not abandoned his trade union movement.
Amazon establishes its first labor union
Before Apple's Atlanta store tried to hold a union election, Amazon's warehouse employees had launched a similar effort, and the process was full of twists and turns.
In April, 2021, the American retail, wholesale and Department Store Union (rwdsu) tried to hold the first union election in Amazon Bessemer warehouse. As a result, Amazon won. In that election, the number of votes against the formation of a trade union was more than twice the number of votes for it. However, in November last year, the National Labor Relations Commission of the United States determined that Amazon had improperly intervened in the election, so it ordered the warehouse to hold a new vote. In the second round of voting, there were slightly more negative votes than supporting votes, but the validity of some elections was questioned and the results were still challenged.
Amazon has set up its first labor union
At that time, Amazon founder Jeff Bezos said in a shareholder letter that although Amazon won the vote, it should pay more attention to the company's workers' welfare.
However, in April this year, thousands of employees of jfk8 warehouse on Amazon Staten Island voted to establish a union, becoming the first Amazon warehouse in the United States to establish a union. Moreover, the employees of the second warehouse on Amazon's Staten Island are also considering whether to establish a labor union.
In addition to apple and Amazon, coffee giant Starbucks also faces escalating labor union struggle. The Starbucks workers united, a group of coffee shop employees, has filed dozens of complaints accusing the company of dismissing employees seeking to form trade unions and impeding unionization efforts. Starbucks accused union organizers of bullying and intimidating employees and customers in some stores to promote more stores to join the union.