In other words, they are withholding improvements to the job from the first workers who unionized. This gives them something to trade in bargaining, but perhaps just as importantly signals to other workers that they will play hardball with anyone who demands a seat at the table.
Apple is willing to provide these Employee Perks to everyone, but the Union will still insist on getting something out of their collective bargaining agreement. Therefore this just became the something. It's that simple.
Unions are not always automatically a good thing folks. For every good union story out there, there are an equal amount of bad union stories. As a union member, you give up your rights to negotiate things directly with your employer, which include receiving new perks. Now your union has to do the negotiating, and you better hope they get what you want out of it.
I’ve never been able to negotiate a damn thing with my employer. There’s no such thing as individual negotiation except on the day you get an offer letter, and that’s if you’re lucky enough to be an in-demand professional worker.
This is retail we are talking about here. Do any of you remember what it’s like to work hourly jobs? I’ll say it one more time: there’s no such thing as negotiation.
“For every good union story out there there are an equal amount of bad stories” seems like a false equivalency. All I see is union members on average making better compensation than non-union employees. The numbers do not lie. [1]
Apple knew this news story will read exactly like it’s reading when it took the actions it took. Giving non-union employees something visible like this is a well-known union busting tactic. They want people thinking of unionizing to feel bad for not getting some relatively worthless perks.
Meanwhile, Apple’s unionized store will be able negotiate far better benefits than non-unionized stores, the kinds of “perks” that matter like better hourly pay and healthcare, not some one-time benefit that’s arguably just a tool for the job.
The pitch against unions in America works just the same as the concept of “temporarily embarrassed millionaires.”
“You don’t want all this scary union bureaucracy because you’re so above average that the union’s contract is going to hold you back.”
> nonunion employees make 83% of the salary that union employees make
This is usually mentioned as though unions cause higher salary, but it could be bias causing correlation. I did some quick googling and I didn’t find anything that clearly shows causation.
Of course assuming causation is probably the safe average move if considering joining a union, although one’s specific circumstances likely matters most in any decision.
So, for real, you’re going to come here and suggest the data I provided might be subject to correlation bias and then immediately say that you couldn’t find any evidence when you searched for it? What’s the value in that?
I will say, the link I provided does say that unions are more prominent in certain industries, but to me that actually isn’t that much of a bias without further data.
What that shows me is that working in an industry with unionization gets you paid more, on average.
That’s not true. Unions negotiate minimums, using collective power to balance the employer’s power over employees.
Individual employees are free to negotiate individually beyond that. Many do just that, but of course it’s less likely to succeed since individuals don’t have the ability to threaten industrial action.
Given that the union will insist on gaining something during collective bargaining negotiations - completely regardless of whatever personal concessions an employer has made during the fiscal year - an employer has zero incentive to just give away anything for free to a unioned employee.
That's the deal you made when you joined a union. If you did not understand that deal, then I'm not sure what to say. Being in a union isn't some automatic path to employment nirvana or something...
In fact, there could even be a doorway to a lawsuit against the employer for treating a specific employee differently than all the other unionized employees. Unions make things... difficult, despite whatever nostalgic views some may carry towards them.
> Unions are democratic organisations. If they’re insisting on gaining something, then a majority of the members are insisting on it.
This is not how unions operate in reality. But regardless, you either get something because your employer thinks it will make your happier, or you get something because your union insists on it.
Why would you get special treatment just because you're in a union? Your union has to negotiate and accept things on your behalf... not you. You lost that right when you joined the union.
The bureaucracy exists to serve the bureaucracy (a play on the infamous Oscar Wilde quote).
It's inescapable and unavoidable for any sufficiently long-lived bureaucracy. By the time you have full-time, professional union employees running things, the disconnect between what actual workers need/want grows uncontrollably.
I've never heard of an individual union member negotiating a higher individual wage or benefits than what's negotiated by the union. My cursory google search results say the same. Do you have examples of this?
Probably not but neither the article nor comment are about industrial unions? Many of the tech sector unions lack the alleged rigidity of industrial CBAs.
The union in question is for retail employees, not tech employees (even though they sell tech products). They are represented by the International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers, an industrial union.
The name of the union organizing workers does not imply much about the contract negotiated on behalf of a bargaining unit. The United Steelworkers have organized google IT subcontractors. (That said I wouldn't expect a ton of compensation flexibility in retail CBAs, but I'm not an expert there either.)
It's extremely common. I'm afraid I don't have time to dig one up, but if you click around here for a while you'll find many contracts in manufacturing that specify minimums per job title.
The entire point of being in a union is for collective bargaining power. What incentive would an employer have to bargain with individuals directly, only to then get raked over the coals by the union for everyone else too?
Treating you special is a liability for the employer when dealing with unions.
When you joined a union you stopped being an individual and you became part of the collective union. That's what you signed up for... and these are the consequences of that decision.
It's entirely up to the parties bargaining how much discretion the employer has to adjust terms during the life of a collective bargaining agreement.
For pay specifically, it's not uncommon for the union to propose wage floors and allow some individualized bargaining. It's also not uncommon to specify a full wage schedule for the sake of transparency.
The workers get to decide what makes sense for them. Sometimes they decide on different systems for different career tracks.
I don't think we're in any danger now, in 2022 of returning to 18 hour work days and acceptable workplace deaths.
Yes, unions helped usher in a new age of employee rights, and we are all thankful for them. However, in the absence of anything real to fight for, unions in the modern day have increasingly become more of a nuisance than a necessity - for both the employee and employer side.
This is a crazy take on a volunteer, intended-to-be-part-time-side-hussle-money "gigs".
The "Gig Economy" is a fable for the most part. Some small minority of people have made it a full time job, sure, but that is not the norm, not even close.
No one is being taken advantage of by Uber, etc. You choose to accept a trip or not... it's that simple.
> The "Gig Economy" is a fable for the most part. Some small minority of people have made it a full time job, sure, but that is not the norm, not even close.
This is a fallacy. It doesn't matter if it were the norm or not. If it can happen at all, the original claim stands. On top of that, it can expand and in fact is.
> No one is being taken advantage of by Uber, etc. You choose to accept a trip or not... it's that simple.
This argument is completely invalid. Any worker can choose to accept a job or not; therefore no worker can ever be taken advantage of? Absurd.
Does the unionized store have a contract with apple already? If so, it would seem like until the contract is up, apple should continue operating under the terms of that contract with respect to the unionized store.
I suppose you could say it "makes sense" if you confine your field of view to one round of bargaining at one employer who is interested in minimizing short-term labor costs. But does it even make sense for Apple managers/investors on a longer time horizon? Is it part of an approach that's good for the wider world?
For better or worse we don't globally optimize during an adversarial two party negotiation. We seek a local equilibrium. It's hard to fault apple for this since any other model would ultimately require a reorganized society to work on a long term basis. Apple can't do that unilaterally.
And as for the idea of freely giving concessions to unions to avoid bad news cycles: it's been tried and the results are not always fiscally ideal.
It's more likely they will give a better deal overall to the unionized store but they will spin the hell out of it to the non unionized stores that the extra $1k they earn isnt really worth it because they dont get a fossball table, free coffee and bonuses that could be up to $1k.
A company I worked for used these kinds of tactics to try and convert contractors into perm. They talked as if the perks were 3-10x as valuable as they actually were.
Apple will also probably also try to keep the wages quiet but publicize the perks (or lack thereof) pour decourager les autres.
