Big Apple Apple Store workers hope to form union

Apple Store staff in New York City are attempting to form a union – and want the minimum wage to be increased to $30 per hour. A group known as the Fruit Stand Workers Union (FSWU) is spearheading the effort to gather signatures from at least 30 percent of staff working at the Apple Store in Grand Union station, so it can file …

[Prst. V.Jeltz]

Ambitious!

Apple Store staff in New York City are attempting to form a union – and want the minimum wage to be increased to $30 per hour.

Thats £23 ph ! (£44k pa)

Thats more than a lot of skilled people make . People whose jobs couldn't be replaced with a website.

That said i'm totally behind the idea of all parts of an orginisation sharing the profits in some mutually agreed fair way.

[IGotOut]

Re: Ambitious!

Location.

A lot of basic jobs in London pay more than skilled jobs, say in mid Wales.

[Prst. V.Jeltz]

Re: Ambitious!

I always wondered how those Eastenders managed to pay the London rent just selling apples and pears off of a cart.

[John Brown (no body)]

Re: Ambitious!

Get yer Apples 'ere! Only 999 squids each! (Wheels extra)

[CynicalOptimist]

Good luck to them. I doubt even $30 per hour leaves much spare at the end of the month in New York city, especially if you have dependants.

[rc05689]

What a terrible idea.

[Cederic]

tenure

Oh look. A union demanding remuneration is linked to tenure.

Pay people for their contribution, not for how long they've managed to not get sacked or promoted.

[Prst. V.Jeltz]

Re: tenure

currently the top few slices of the pyramid get paid for the contributions of the masses underneath.

[Yet Another Anonymous coward]

Re: tenure

This is a New York union fight, it won't have all the fluffy communal love and hugs of say the N.U.M.

The electricians union is going to step in and demand that anybody who services a computer is theirs and Fruit Stand Workers can't take the back of a machine, then the communications workers are going to demand that only they can do phones.

It's why general union like the Teamsters are so big there - they negotiate with companies and governments to be the only union in a closed shop - in return they are generally very accommodating to the employer.

[David Nash]

Re: tenure

Why do unions in the USA (the ones I've heard of anyway) have weird names? UK unions have proper names like "the national union of blah blah workers".

Anyway if electricians or communications unions already covered this work, wouldn't the workers be trying to join those unions instead of forming a new one?

[John Brown (no body)]

Re: tenure

Teamsters, IIRC, were originally the trucking and haulage union and the name grew out of people driving teams of horses pulling wagons. Teamster was a job title.

In the UK, we have Unite, Prospect, Equity, Unison and quite a few smaller Unions with one word, non-descriptive names. There's even one called Voices Of The World. Not sure what they do, but I don't think it's about singing.

[David Nash]

Re: tenure

Fair enough, thanks. Didn't know what Teamster was. Sounds like something sporty :)

Not sure why I got a downvote for asking a question!

[John Brown (no body)]

Re: tenure

"Pay people for their contribution, not for how long they've managed to not get sacked or promoted."

Not everyone wants to be promoted. People doing a job for a long time are often better at it than some wet behind the ears oik fresh out of school.

[Cederic]

Re: tenure

If they're better, they'll contribute more. If they're not better, why should they get paid more?

As a worker, why should I get paid less than the person sat next to me for doing identical work?

As an employer, why would I pay two people a different wage for doing identical work?

If someone wants to stay in the same job at the same company for decades then that's their choice. If they want more pay, they can get better at that job, or accept that they need to move on.

Just paying them more for being older is illegal in the UK.

[Falmari]

Re: tenure

@Cederic "Just paying them more for being older is illegal in the UK."

Yet minimum wage is based on age.

23 and over £9.50

21 to 22 £9.18

18 to 20 £6.83

Under 18 £4.81

So does not look like it is illegal in the UK.

BTW tenure is not the same as age.

[DaveeD]

Re: tenure

What sort of magical world do you live in where recruiting new staff is cost free? There's a benefit to holding onto staff who do their job well even if they don't have ambition. Not everyone is striving to get promoted beyond their competency.

[Marty McFly]

$30/hr?? Seriously?

That is $61k/yr. For a retail job. The pay stub may say "Apple", but this is not a tech sector job. If they were actually good at tech they would be out of the Apple retail store already.

Yeah, it sucks, but we all did it early in our careers. And when we wanted something better, we went out and got it. We earned a better pay through education, experience, and self-motivation.

Go ahead, form a union. Watch how quickly Apple converts this store to remote sales. It is not a big stretch for an 'innovative' tech company to 'pioneer' robotic sales droids to assist customers in person.

Demanding high wages + no career skills = unemployable.

[David Nash]

Re: $30/hr?? Seriously?

When negotiating always start with more than you expect to get.

[Trotts36]

Re: $30/hr?? Seriously?

This - if they force the hand the hand will happily move all sales away from the stores.

Any worker in the fruit basket should approach this false promise very carefully.