Organizing workers in all industries helps our membership negotiate better contracts. It also helps the workers organized to get better pay and benefits. For that matter, even the threat of a union can loosen the company purse strings to benefit workers. Apple is the latest example.
A couple of days ago Motherboard published Leaked Audio: Apple VP Gives Store Workers Anti-Union Speech.
O’Brien, sitting in a wood-paneled room with a potted orchid and framed photos of Apple’s corporate campus, goes on to use other standard anti-union talking points favored by employers looking to crush unionization efforts among their workers. “I’m worried about what it would mean to put another organization in the middle of our relationship, an organization that does not have a deep understanding of Apple or our business,” O’Brien continued. “And most importantly, one that I do not believe shares our commitment to you.”
The video arrives amid an unprecedented unionization drive at Apple’s retail stores. Today, Apple retail workers in Louisville, Kentucky publicly launched a union campaign, becoming the fourth U.S. store to do so since mid-April. Apple retail workers in New York City, Atlanta, and Towson, Maryland have also announced union drives. To date, Apple workers have yet to win a union election at any of the company’s 272 retail locations in the United States.
This article was followed today by CNN reporting that Apple boost starting pay for US workers to $22 per hour. This highlights a common management practice of raising wages as a way of deterring a union drive. One reason the autoworkers at foreign transplants in the US often earn close to UAW wages is they raised them when the UAW came calling.
Apple will raise the starting pay for its US employees, the iPhone maker said on Wednesday, as companies face a tight labor market and a surge in unionization efforts amid rising inflation.
Beware Apple workers, if they are willing to give you a raise at the mere threat of a union, imagine what a real union can accomplish.
