Live data from Hacker News

Apple’s Unionized Store Wants to Start Accepting Tips from Customers

bloomberg.com

21–30 of 119 posts

Re: Apple’s Unionized Store Wants to Start Accepting Tips from Customers

#22
post #3

John Gruber’s take: > But this tipping proposal is so antithetical to Apple’s customer-first retail experience that it feels like a joke, or that the union negotiators have never even been in an Apple Store. https://daringfireball.net/linked/2023/05/04/apple-store-mar...

He equates it to vaping. I'd take an employee blowing clouds of raspberry smoke in my face over 22% tip on a Macbook any day.

Re: Apple’s Unionized Store Wants to Start Accepting Tips from Customers

#23

I am shocked a labor union is okay with tipping as a mechanism of compensation. Its antithetical to their own goals usually, let alone Apple is not going to take kind to this. Tipping is out of control as it is, at least in the US. Where does it stop I have to wonder. Lets just keep the fight about fair wages, benefits and working conditions first and foremost. This feels like its waiting for public backlash

[flagged]

Re: Apple’s Unionized Store Wants to Start Accepting Tips from Customers

#25

Fuck that. Tipping culture is ridiculous as it is. No way in hell someone deserves a tip showing you the capabilities of an iphone. Especially not with the current POS systems that ask for a minimum of 20%.

Yeah isn't it literally your basic minimum job requirement to be showing people the capabilities of an iphone? You want me to buy your product, YOU show me why I should want it.

Re: Apple’s Unionized Store Wants to Start Accepting Tips from Customers

#26
Like a lot of people, I waited tables for a few years in my youth and also did pizza delivery and was paid well under minimum wage if I excluded my tips. Tips largely shift salary burden from the employer to more directly from the customer, who like an old lord, may decide whether and how much he wants to pay the peasants serving him.

I always tip very well because I empathize with and appreciate the services provided by people at this layer of the economy. However, I hate it. I found it demeaning that my salary as a waiter was dependent on fluffing up the customer and found it gross at best how compelled the girls were to flirt because of how much it inflated their tips. As a customer it adds a psychic burden--decisions suck. Now I have to do math and decide my level of generosity. Do I really need to tip Starbucks for the brewed coffee I just ordered? And so on.

I don't like this additional friction with every human interaction I have that involves commerce.

Re: Apple’s Unionized Store Wants to Start Accepting Tips from Customers

#27
Organizing against a company like Apple is pretty much exclusively about how you can leverage media attention to get concessions. Apple has no problem locking you out and replacing, except for the negative media & consequential consumer impact.

So it seems like it would make sense to ask for things that the customer would actually like/be okay with, like basic higher pay, some sort of seniority structure maybe, etc.

Re: Apple’s Unionized Store Wants to Start Accepting Tips from Customers

#28

I am shocked a labor union is okay with tipping as a mechanism of compensation. Its antithetical to their own goals usually, let alone Apple is not going to take kind to this. Tipping is out of control as it is, at least in the US. Where does it stop I have to wonder. Lets just keep the fight about fair wages, benefits and working conditions first and foremost. This feels like its waiting for public backlash

[flagged]

"Please respond to the strongest plausible interpretation of what someone says, not a weaker one that's easier to criticize."

Re: Apple’s Unionized Store Wants to Start Accepting Tips from Customers

#29
Title is clickbait, which this entire thread has fallen for. Tipping is mentioned in two paragraphs out of an entire article worth of eminently reasonable requests and terms. Who knows what the actual context is. Maybe this was a half-hearted idea that was tossed into a long list. Bloomberg just chose to zero in on it as a title to make the union seem deranged.
Post reply on HN