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Apple signs union agreement for Glasgow Apple Store staff

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Re: Apple signs union agreement for Glasgow Apple Store staff

#51

Post by Maursault »

pocket_cheese wrote: post #32
doublepg23 wrote: post #6

It’s interesting seeing unionization back on the table in the 2020s. I worked at a union retail job for three years and saw the pros and cons firsthand. We had a problem employee who was untouchable regardless if he was completing his job duties (assuming he showed up at all). Eventually this came to a head as he would spend 30min+ in the restroom. To address this they instituted a “log all bathroom breaks” policy _f…

The worst case scenario with a union is bad employees taking advantage of a company. Without unions, the worst case is a bad company taking advantage of its workers. If you are a capital owner, I can see why unions are bad. If you are a worker,(i.e. 99.9% of people), I have no idea why you wouldn't want unions.

> I have no idea why you wouldn't want unions.

A union can get a monopoly over a certain employer, such that all hires are required to join the union or they don't get the job. Union dues can be half the annual salary with no benefit to the union member unless they remain a member for 10-20 years. Though this practice is technically illegal, it goes on without any Labor Department intervention. Why would you want to give up half your salary for no benefit until you've been working for years?

Re: Apple signs union agreement for Glasgow Apple Store staff

#52

Post by maxsilver »

Maursault wrote: post #51
pocket_cheese wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The worst case scenario with a union is bad employees taking advantage of a company. Without unions, the worst case is a bad company taking advantage of its workers. If you are a capital owner, I can see why unions are bad. If you are a worker,(i.e. 99.9% of people), I have no idea why you wouldn't want unions.

> I have no idea why you wouldn't want unions. A union can get a monopoly over a certain employer, such that all hires are required to join the union or they don't get the job. Union dues can be half the annual salary with no benefit to the union member unless they remain a member for 10-20 years. Though this practice is technically illegal, it goes on without any Labor Department intervention. Why would you want to…

> Union dues can be half the annual salary

Come on, is that really the honest truth? What occupation or union has union dues at 50% of salary?

In the US, UAW's dues max out around ~1.5% of salary (or an hourly approximate equivalent), the teachers union maxes out at 1.6% of salary (highest possible dues cap out at $55/month max), the nursing union dues cap out at $65/month, our local teamsters are approximately ~1.45% of salary ($50/month for someone at a $20/hr job), and so on.

The "expensive Union Dues" mess is almost always FUD or outright lies. Union dues are usually pretty modest.

Re: Apple signs union agreement for Glasgow Apple Store staff

#53

Post by deltree7 »

pocket_cheese wrote: post #32
doublepg23 wrote: post #6

It’s interesting seeing unionization back on the table in the 2020s. I worked at a union retail job for three years and saw the pros and cons firsthand. We had a problem employee who was untouchable regardless if he was completing his job duties (assuming he showed up at all). Eventually this came to a head as he would spend 30min+ in the restroom. To address this they instituted a “log all bathroom breaks” policy _f…

The worst case scenario with a union is bad employees taking advantage of a company. Without unions, the worst case is a bad company taking advantage of its workers. If you are a capital owner, I can see why unions are bad. If you are a worker,(i.e. 99.9% of people), I have no idea why you wouldn't want unions.

1) If you are an above average employee, your upside is limited.

2) If you are an employee, you'll pay higher prices in other places.

Unions are cancer. If I wanted socialism, I'd have stayed in my shithole country

Re: Apple signs union agreement for Glasgow Apple Store staff

#54

Post by nebula8804 »

nfriedly wrote: post #45

I really like the German system where employees get representation (usually union reps) on the board of the company - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Codetermination_in_Germany - I think it helps bring a lot more balance to business decisions.

But then at the same time you have something like Volkswagen who just fired their CEO that was pushing hard into EVs. The inertia of the old ICE portion of the company (including the union people who may lose their jobs) just puts a hamper on their speed of execution which shouldn't be the case since incentives are generally aligned. If the company succeeds then the employees + union succeed as well. In this case it seems like they want to hold on to the old way of doing things as long as they can but I don't know what their game plan is going to be once reality comes knocking?

It makes me wonder, can unionized shops survive when some fast moving competitors(eg. Tesla) are not unionized?

Re: Apple signs union agreement for Glasgow Apple Store staff

#55

Post by kirillbobyrev »

nfriedly wrote: post #45

I really like the German system where employees get representation (usually union reps) on the board of the company - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Codetermination_in_Germany - I think it helps bring a lot more balance to business decisions.

I worked in Germany for a while and one of such unions was built at my company. I can't think of a single good thing they did and I remember plenty of ways they made the life of employees worse in ways that looked deliberate. The way the union/council was built looked very bad to me to the point where I completely stopped following the office politics.

I'm not saying this is a bad idea and I certainly don't have enough knowledge of the German system to have an objective assessment, but this looks like another example where the law is produced with good intentions but the implementations of such rules are serving some other purpose.

Other than that, I felt like Germany has incredibly good laws for the workers/employees, the working culture there is very healthy and I like it a lot.

Re: Apple signs union agreement for Glasgow Apple Store staff

#56

Post by nebula8804 »

ClumsyPilot wrote: post #33
tick_tock_tick wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, the point is they don't give the union store benefits. So by unionizing they make stuff better for everyone but themselves.

Suppose they'll u ionise all stores in the country, then what is your move?

Raise the cost of goods to make up for the loss in profit margin. Yeah people can go to PC/Android but there is enough value add(eg. iMessage, app store, continuity) that many will swallow their pride and stay in the ecosystem.

Re: Apple signs union agreement for Glasgow Apple Store staff

#57

Post by skippyboxedhero »

Gordonjcp wrote: post #12
AceJohnny2 wrote: post #10

Looking forward to the headlines of Apple taunting the Glasgow staff by offering benefits to other stores but not them, with the defense that the new benefits aren't part of the Glasgow agreement.

You might want to look into Glasgow's history with the trade unions. When it comes to things like this, Glasgow is the epitome of "fuck around and find out".

The "find out" bit being finding out that you have no economy.

The store is in the centre of Glasgow, by 2030 almost all of that area will be residential. Almost all the manufacturing jobs have gone. Docks have gone. Everything is gone. Govt and retail were the only major employers, retail is now going too (employee density of places outside the city is a fraction of what is was). This is stupid, the pay is fine for what it is, and Apple can and will just close the store.

Btw, my family is from Glasgow, one of my relatives was a Red Clydeside leader, the labour movement today is worlds away from what it was then. All the old trade unionists began moving away in the 60s. Middle-class people moved in seeking the status of a working-class movement, needless confrontation ramped up, and the leaders lost all their member's jobs.

Glasgow is one of the purest cautionary tales about the dangers of unions (and, to be clear, this was never a question for the early union leaders...unions were supposed to be about collaboration, not confrontation, all the countries in Europe that have collaborative unions have workers in industry, all the ones that had confrontational unions don't...it is that simple).

Re: Apple signs union agreement for Glasgow Apple Store staff

#58

Post by skippyboxedhero »

KennyBlanken wrote: post #27
capableweb wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> A large share of the employee grievances will be things not related to pay Might be in other cases, but in this case it's about low pay, and shitty shift patterns: > Reportedly, retail staff at Apple Glasgow earn 12 ($15) per hour. Workers at the store say that low wages, plus unfair shift patterns and a lack of pay transparency have prompted the move toward unionization. https://appleinsider.com/articles/22/06/10/…

In the wake of someone driving an SUV through an Apple store, I saw a LinkedIn post by some VP of retail stores. They were in a position that sounded sort of like they were in an HR-ish, "people management" role. Lots of talk about family, and close knit this, and "it's my job to support them" that. The usual self-righteous linkedin bullshit, but unusually brazen given someone was killed and a couple people injured.…

$15/hour in Glasgow in retail is good. That is £19k/year net. The minimum wage in the UK is ~£9.50, and a lot of people in retail will be on substantially less (because the rate varies by age).

You may not know a lot about Glasgow either, it isn't like "any urban area". It is one of the poorest places in the UK, massive opioid problem, lowest life expectancy in the UK (in the poorest areas), derelict housing everywhere, highest rate of refugees per capita, high levels of violent crime (amazingly, this has got substantially better and it is still terrible by the metric of anyone familiar with crime in other countries)...the only big employers are govt and retail, this compares well with low-skill govt work. You cannot compare this to any city in the US either, maybe Detroit or somewhere? But the US is just another world relative to Europe (Glasgow is more like somewhere like rural West Virginia...but a city).

Re: Apple signs union agreement for Glasgow Apple Store staff

#59

Post by ClumsyPilot »

nebula8804 wrote: post #56
ClumsyPilot wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Suppose they'll u ionise all stores in the country, then what is your move?

Raise the cost of goods to make up for the loss in profit margin. Yeah people can go to PC/Android but there is enough value add(eg. iMessage, app store, continuity) that many will swallow their pride and stay in the ecosystem.

That's not something that would worry me as a negative if I was a union member on $15 an hour.

Also they've been raising cost of goods for the last five years without any pressure from the unions. While wages of Apple store staff have been falling in relative terms. So I do not believe anything would change.

Re: Apple signs union agreement for Glasgow Apple Store staff

#60

Post by mjhay »

skippyboxedhero wrote: post #58
KennyBlanken wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In the wake of someone driving an SUV through an Apple store, I saw a LinkedIn post by some VP of retail stores. They were in a position that sounded sort of like they were in an HR-ish, "people management" role. Lots of talk about family, and close knit this, and "it's my job to support them" that. The usual self-righteous linkedin bullshit, but unusually brazen given someone was killed and a couple people injured.…

$15/hour in Glasgow in retail is good. That is £19k/year net. The minimum wage in the UK is ~£9.50, and a lot of people in retail will be on substantially less (because the rate varies by age). You may not know a lot about Glasgow either, it isn't like "any urban area". It is one of the poorest places in the UK, massive opioid problem, lowest life expectancy in the UK (in the poorest areas), derelict housing everywhe…

According to this site, the average salary in Glasgow is north of 17/hr: https://uk.talent.com/salary?job=glasgow

Glasgow isn't like it used to be. Scotland in general is one of the wealthier of the UK outside of the SE.

The poor areas are mostly in Wales and the North.

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