Apple Store Employee Attempts To Form Union 1008
An anonymous reader writes "Cory Moll, a part-time employee at an Apple store in San Francisco, is attempting unionize Apple store employees. The Apple Retail Workers Union is an attempt to fight for better wages and benefits and to address what he says are unfair practices in the company's glass-and-steel retail showrooms. 'The core issues are definitely involve compensation, pay, benefits,' said Mr. Moll, who has received little public support from employees so far, though he said he has emails expressing support. An Apple representative confirmed Mr. Moll is an employee, but declined to comment on the union effort."
Unionize this (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Unionize this (Score:4, Insightful)
When there are no employees left, how will humans earn the money to buy products with?
Your point is entirely valid. Automation and robotics are replacing jobs faster than they are being created now.
Re:Unionize this (Score:4, Insightful)
When that happens, we change the the economic system. If we really don't need any human workers to produce everything, then.. we don't need humans to have to work to get the stuff.
Re:Unionize this (Score:4, Insightful)
When that happens, *they* (the rich/powerful/police etc) will have all the guns/food, control of all purchases/transport/employment etc. And you'll be utterly fucked.
Re:Unionize this (Score:5, Interesting)
When that happens, *they* (the rich/powerful/police etc) will have all the guns/food, control of all purchases/transport/employment etc. And you'll be utterly fucked.
When that happens, you download an .stl file and print whatever object it is you wanted. It's already possible to build your own CNC mill/lathe, FDM machine, furnace, casting moulds, etc. With enough time and a bit of googling, you can make nearly anything at home (a few people have even fabricated and packaged their own microchips). That process will only become cheaper, faster and more automated.
Re:Unionize this (Score:4, Informative)
And if they put DRM into it so you can't just "print up whatever you want"?
We should all start our own lists of companies to boycott, giving the reasons why [trolltalk.com], rather than being afraid that they might sue us if we dare to name and shame them.
Sunlight - it works on vampires, you know. Shine a bit on the businesses that are screwing us, and maybe they'll shrivel up and die because nobody wants to be seen near them. What have you got to lose except your chains?
Re:Unionize this (Score:4, Insightful)
When that happens, you download an .stl file and print whatever object it is you wanted.
You are jumping too far ahead. Automation doesn't mean that you can just waltz in and run your program on that automated production line. Having one at home is not an option because of costs.
Here is a specific example. Imagine that Bill Gates, our favorite super-villain, bought all industry in the USA and made it fully automated. Gas stations sell fuel with credit cards (just as it is now,) McD sells sandwiches from vending machines, and so on.
In this world BG can produce - or not produce - whatever he wants. No workers are needed (let's forget for the moment about engineers.) There are 300+ million people without jobs and without food. BG has food, and it costs him just the energy and the amortization of machines.
In essence, BG would not need those people. He may want to feed them for free, just so they don't riot, but for every practical purpose they are irrelevant. Kings wanted to have many subjects because they could tax them and use them as soldiers. But BG can't tax poor people, and he has noone to wage war with.
That brave new world that you are talking about doesn't appear to be such a great place. From the POV of communism at this stage BG should declare world peace and just give things to people as they need them - and if they want to work (say, weave baskets) it's OK too. But will BG do that? Why should he do that? What happens after he does that? If you say BG will be that communist, and he will share... then some out of those 300 million will be not so kind, and they will take over. Human nature is a well known factor.
You need to be practically an omnipotent god to be completely free from the environment and from other people. Since we haven't figured out yet how to use dark energy (and build gravity guns with it) our industry will be for quite some time based on physical resources of the planet. Even if we imagine a perfect communist world where energy and resources are monetarily free, those resources aren't free to the society. There is so much fresh water on the planet, for example... you can't just open all taps and go on a year-long vacation. But that's what people will do; we value only what we pay for. USSR tried to educate "a new human" and failed miserably.
Re:Unionize this (Score:4, Informative)
Current limitations on this are the electronics (only a few people have made silicon chips at home), and the accuracy of your groundbar and screw drives are mostly dependant on the accuracy of the bar and screws already in your mill.
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And our wars will be fought by automated drones.
Pft. Our wars will be done via computer simulation, and people will feel duty-bound to walk into the recycling booths when the computers say they were "killed".
Re:Unionize this (Score:5, Funny)
and I doubt most of us could imagine a world without capitalism.
It's easy if you try.
Re:Unionize this (Score:4, Funny)
You're a dreamer!
Re:Unionize this (Score:5, Insightful)
But he's not the only one...
Re:Unionize this (Score:4, Funny)
Someday maybe I'll join you guys.
Re:Unionize this (Score:5, Funny)
Dude, this is great. You should write a song about this.
Re:Unionize this (Score:4, Interesting)
Concentration of wealth into the hands of the few is still Capitalism. Concentration of power is the antithesis of Communism. Please don't let the USSR taint your view of what Communism is. They were Communist in name only.
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Damn, this has reminded me of a story I read once a long time ago. Hopefully Team Slashdot can help me remember the name:
Pseudo Plot Summary
As robotics and automation became more and more commonplace fewer and fewer jobs were available for the population. When the ranks of the unemployed became so large and homelessness so rampant, the rich who occupied the cities didn't want to see them anymore and forced the government to
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As others have said, it's Manna, and the other stuff on the guy's site was "Robotic Nation".
It's not the best written piece of fiction ever, but it does make a series of very good points about the way the world works, and the way things are going. I used to think very much along the lines of that stuff - what happens in a world post-scarcity, in which the established rich still own everything but there is no work for most people?
Of course you only have to look around at Africa and parts of Asia and South Am
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It's not about how much you make, it's how much you can afford. Not everything costs the same worldwide.
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Yeah, what the other AC asks. When was the last time the cost of living went DOWN? It hasn't happened since I graduated high school in 1974. Unless you're a really, really, really old bastard, you've never seen it happen either.
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It is the goal of producers to maximize profit. It is the goal of consumers to get what they want at the lowest price. Free market Capitalism is the system where producers and consumers are free to set that price.
The real reason the cost of living doesn't go down is because of the federal reserve. They are constantly inflating the money supply to slowly steal the wealth of the country for the politicians and wall street bankers. If there was sound money all prices including wages would be constantly falling
Re:China, India (Score:4, Insightful)
It is the goal of producers to maximize profit. It is the goal of consumers to get what they want at the lowest price. Free market Capitalism is the system where producers and consumers are free to set that price.
But consumers never are free to set that price. When was the last time you went into a supermarket and say the to checkout girl "Actually I don't think that banana is worth that much, I want to pay 10% less". The people in the western world don't know how to haggle any more.
And if some idiot tells me that I can vote with my wallet I would point out to them that I don't particularly like starving.
The real reason the cost of living doesn't go down is because of the federal reserve. They are constantly inflating the money supply to slowly steal the wealth of the country for the politicians and wall street bankers. If there was sound money all prices including wages would be constantly falling as people saved and became more productive. The goal for the last 100 years has been to inflate enough to keep prices stable so that people don't notice the theft.
[citation needed]
No seriously. You need to re-examine your evidence. This has been going on in all countries everywhere since the "free market" and capitalism was invented. This is not a problem specific to America (land of the relatively inexpensive), but it's a problem with capitalism and basic human greed. The aim of the rich is to get richer. The aim of the poor is not to starve to death.
Please stop whining about how it's the government's fault, and realise that it's human nature to want more.
Re:China, India (Score:4, Insightful)
While I agree with some of your post regarding cost of living, I have to disagree with your statement about consumers never setting price. In a free market, demand will set the price once a product is past it's initial release. Once you get past the early stages where production is low and costs are high, the consumer demand sets the price. That doesn't mean someone can walk into a store and demand a set price, but if consumers aren't buying a product, they are forced to either cater to a richer audience if that's an option, or they make it cheaper, innovate to add features to make it seem more of a value, or fail against the competition and possibly go out of business entirely unless they lower their prices.
That model does weaken on consumables that are a necessity for most, like fuel. In those instances, the effect is blunted, but even fuel, if driven too high, will effect sales. It is directly measurable to demand. If the price is too high, people travel less, and demand drops, along with the price. If a local grocery store's price is too high, they will either become a high end store, or if there is too much competition, they will be forced to lower prices. If there is a war in the middle east, people become concerned that supplies will be interrupted and prices skyrocket.
Don't confuse a lack of ability to haggle with market demand on a larger scale. If a new energy source was discovered tomorrow that made gasoline optional or opened up competition in the fuel market, the price of gas would plummet.
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Apple's goal is to be as profitable as possible
No, their culture is to make "insanely great" products, which is the sort of hyperbole they believe in, but gives the haters ample ammo. Contrast that with Dell and their razor thin margins and cheapest commodity components possible, and there's your reason most Apple customers love Apple products and nobody loves Dell.
The means Apple uses to differentiate its products (and thus to get their higher profit margins) is doing a few features really, really well.
Which is what I said. Talk to an Apple employee for 5 minutes and you'll be sick of the term "focus". It's ingrained in their culture, and they believe it. Others think it's a bit corny, but
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Your counterexample is the US just after the Civil War, which bears about as much resemblance to the modern economy as the rain forest does to the Moon?
How about we look at a more modern example, such as Japan [nytimes.com]:
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you meant Star Trek Federated Utopia or STFU
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Re:Unionize this (Score:5, Funny)
Unions are about more than striking you know? (Score:3)
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And they're totally unnecessary anyway, because we know that the paymaster, auto company, or federal government can always be trusted to be fair to their employees -- ensuring the safety of the middle class.
Re:Unionize this (Score:5, Interesting)
Yeah, go ahead and form your "union". You will quickly find out just how replaceable [flickr.com] you are.
He's just following Apple's lead - if you can't even replace batteries, certainly you can't replace employees.
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Oh, batteries are perfectly replaceable. You just have to fork over the dollars for the warranty contract or the the billing hours for the "genius" that do the job. I wonder, do the bar serve refreshments while one wait?
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Reading these comments (Score:5, Insightful)
Reminds me that Americans are assholes when it comes to labor rights.
Re:Reading these comments (Score:5, Interesting)
What the above commenters mean when they say "be happy for what you get, you're unskilled labor," what they mean is: "Your value to the company is not above what you're paid. There are a sea of workers (supply) that can fill our need for people (demand) like you." Further, there are people that think that this worker is trying to change the terms of his employment, which seems unfair to the company. Let's say I hire you to paint my fence at $10/hour. Half way through the job, you come back to me and tell me that you need $15/hour to finish the fence. Obviously I have the right to tell you that I will hire your brother to paint it at $10/hour to finish the job. Introducing the union aspect to this situation gets a lot of people riled up, and some pretty strong emotions come out.
What I want to know is: what is this really about? Does the guy just want to be paid more, or does he feel like Apple is making too much money and needs to return it to their employees at a higher rate?
Re:Reading these comments (Score:4, Insightful)
You won't find me arguing for exorbitant wages but I don't think allowing workers to organize throws the balance of power in favor of labor. I live in country where most people are unionized and I can tell you we don't all live like kings.
Re:Reading these comments (Score:5, Interesting)
Aside from jobs like mine...there are hardly any good reasons for unions to exist in the US anymore.
Don't think I've ever seen such blatant hypocrisy. If even a single job in the has reason for a labor union, then they all do. There is nothing special about certain jobs that make them more in need of collective bargaining.
chances are slim (Score:3)
Historically, unions aimed at a single company fail pretty miserably, Unions live or die by numerical strength, and you can't get that if one company can scab the entire membership out. Now if they got Best Buy, Radio Shack, etc on board and called themselves the "electronics salesforce union", they might have a chance. Short of that, it'll just be a flash in the pan.
I wouldn't worry too much (Score:4, Funny)
Steve's real cool. You'll see.
In other news... (Score:5, Insightful)
Cory Moll was reported missing today by his family. They also expressed concern about a chrome statue placed in front of the local Apple store in Cory's exact image and dimensions. An Apple store representative said, "We wished to express our gratitude for Mr. Moll's concerns and have thus erected this statue, and will do so for any other employee who does the same."
Why not? (Score:5, Funny)
They already have a cult, why not a union?
Typo in summary (Score:3)
The core issues are definitely involve compensation, pay, benefits
While the linked article says:
The core issues definitely involve compensation, pay, benefits
I hope the typo was an accident, and not something inserted to try to make the person attempting to organize look like an undereducated person with poor grammar.
Listing his grievances... (Score:4, Interesting)
Umm... correct me if I'm wrong, but this is how management works, and why there's a manager in every store adapting to what works best for their particular store.
Again, this is a little thing called "empowerment" which means their store managers can actually make decisions on how to best run their particular store. I'm guessing the cost of living differs dramatically across all the locations where Apple has stores, and store mangers could use the discretion to retain particularly valuable staff who might have an extra hour's commute, for example?
Now this one seems to be the crux of the matter. personally I find it hard to believe that store managers are queuing up to get rid of their best performing employees. I could, however, understand if a store manager paid particular attention to someone who might be doing decent sales, but had an attitude problem that could cause issues.
From that interview, everything he says makes Apple look like a progressive employer who empowers their management to reward the staff who add value to the business. This sounds like sour grapes from someone who has worked "in multiple stores" and can't get past the shop floor for whatever reason. Could it be the big chip on his shoulder noticing that other people seem to be doing better than him?
This guy has a sense of entitlement. (Score:3)
If he is stuck in a part time position then he is probably does not show any initiative. Showing some initiative should be the first step and trying to pursue full time status. If you cannot move up to full-time then how do you expect anyone to give you a raise?
A human right in the civilised world (Score:5, Insightful)
Sadly Huey Helicopters were not involved but would have looked so good.
Citation? (Score:3)
Re:Citation? (Score:5, Interesting)
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Do you really believe that is easy? Getting a new job involves time searching for it. Also, not having a job even for a short period of time is not an attractive option for most people, which complicates the matter further. There's a lot of friction in the job market, which is why it doesn't work well at all without unions and regulation.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Something tells me you've never had to look for a job before.
You should probably move out of the basement before you comment further.
Re:So get a new job (Score:5, Insightful)
That was a joke, right?
In case you're actually as clueless as that, we're talking about people who need to work at the Apple store to scrape by, not engineers making cushy 6-figure salaries. There's a huge chasm between having recruiters calling daily to poach you and not being able to take take off an hour in the middle of the workday because rent is due. You're one of the lucky few to be completely oblivious to how most Americans actually live. Work retail for a few months without using your current assets and credit- you'll get a real education. It ain't pretty.
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OK - please explain why an apple store employee should be paid more when they have a queue of people lining up to do the job?
If the pay isn't good enough, get some skills and make yourself more valuable. Asking for more money "just because" when there is a surplus of people vying for the job is not going to work - especially in a recession.
In a supply/demand environment, resources (eg, people) are only worth more when there is a shortage of them. There is no shortage of them.
Re:So get a new job, knee grow (Score:4, Insightful)
If you feel you're not being paid enough, ask for a raise. If you don't get it and you're still unhappy, then change workplace. It's not that hard. And this is even from a part-time employee...
I'm not fond of unions myself. I like the idea, but unions are like every other organization: they refuse to disband or become inactive when their goals are accomplished. For unions, once safe workplaces and decent wages are established, the next growth area for them is politics and that's the problem. But to play Devil's advocate here... I have a question for you.
If we do things your way it will turn into a race to the bottom. If you are not being paid enough (and actually have a legitimate reason to believe that), sure you can change jobs. That won't be easy in this job market but it can be done. The problem is, your replacement is going to make the same inadequate wage that you did and is likely to make less since they just joined and haven't been with the company any length of time. You have no guarantee you won't end up in the same situation at the new company you work for, especially in the form of added responsibilities with no matching increase in pay. When this keeps happening across an industry it serves to stagnate wages or even drive them down.
Just think about mobile phone providers in the US. There are several different companies. They compete with each other. You'd think this would have certain effects, such as at least one company that charges a realistic rate for text messaging that actually reflects the marginal cost of delivery. The first company to do that could seriously undercut the competition. Fact is, they all grossly overcharge for texting and they all make more money that way. None of them want to rock that boat. It's de facto collusion, of the sort that doesn't have to be deliberately pre-arranged. Why do you think that can't happen to the job market? If no employer will pay a wage that realistically reflects the value you provide for the company, you either suck it up or get a new skillset and find a different line of work.
A union can actually force an employer to pay a higher, or if you like more reasonable, wage. That can be the case whether the employee is you or someone else. They can increase the average "going rate" for a worker in your industry, something other companies do look at when deciding how to attract the talent they want. Unions are an answer to the fact that any single employee is going to be replacable and that employers generally have the advantage in the job market due to overwhelming resources and the effects of "organization vs. individual, let's bargain".
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Re:So get a new job (Score:5, Funny)
True that. One should negotiate one's wages with a multinational corporation as equal individuals, not go brute force with collective bargaining.
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Re:So get a new job (Score:5, Interesting)
Dude, that's complete bullshit. The majority of Apple Store employees are part time and don't get any benefits (except for cheap benefits like commuter checks.) Part timers start at ~$12 an hour.
Apple Store has a reputation for firing people at the drop of a hat. There's simply no value for them in retaining employees in the long run simply BECAUSE their employees are easily replaceable and the cost of retention is higher than the cost of training.
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That just means that your current employer is screwing you. Your response should be to try to get more money, not to demand that your peers make less.
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why shouldn't employees (who are free to associate, right?) try to leverage the sunk costs of their training into higher salary? assuming (for sake of argument) that there is no government interference on their behalf and that the unionizers don't initiate "violence" against the non-unionizers, why is this not a rational approach compatible with Libertarianism(tm)?
note, a reply should either explain how unionizing under these assumptions is irrational or give a coherent argument along the lines that these a
and then there is reality. (Score:3)
every workplace pays roughly the same.
companies compare their wages with each other, and fix wages at the 'average', which they continually drive down to reduce costs and improve margins for investors.
in a high unemployment enviornment, there is no incentive for any employer to raise wages. their business model depends on processes that deliberately eliminate any opportunity for skill or individuality to make an improvement in efficiency. everything is diagrammed and programmed and planned down to when the
Re:So get a new job (Score:5, Insightful)
If you feel you're not being paid enough, ask for a raise. If you don't get it and you're still unhappy, then change workplace. It's not that hard. And this is even from a part-time employee...
What a standard line. You've clearly never worked in a hostile workplace have you? The "If you don't like it, there's the door" attitude is nice in theory. The In practice all that happens is any self-respecting ambitious individual moves on to some other job, and you're left with the disrespectful unambitious drips that can't work anywhere else. Often the employer just uses the high staff turnover to have a workplace full of cheap expendable employees, some middle manager gets a wage raise himself, out of all this. Costs saved from paying your staff less, neglecting the work environment are quickly wiped out by abject business failure. You quickly end up with employees who don't give a damn, you know the kind. Customer service standards will degrade, sales will struggle, you'll have more employees acting up, management will struggle with discipline, will have to be harsh. Showing up drunk or not at all and some outright bilking the business. Eventually, something has to give. You pay peanuts, you get monkeys.
I've been a middle manager in a hostile work place, I moved real quick on rather than standing my ground and trying to fix things. Later the union did move into the work place - a rather easy target due to the catastrophically low moral and flagging sales.
But as you say, people could ask for raises and make demands, you can't get fired for asking nicely and stating your case, and if you do, in most countries you can dispute wrongful dismissal. It's disappointing that more employees don't put up more of a fight if they want their work place to be better. It's just a shame that unions have to be paid to do it for them.
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That's how unions start, dumbass. You ask around to feel out support. Than you start the campaign if you think you can win. Personally, I hope you're the first one with your AC back against the wall when the revolution comes before you criticize more "trouble".
Feel free to down-mod, my karma can take it. But parent comment is bullshit.
Re:This is a Complete Non Story (Score:4, Insightful)
> Honest question, I just don't understand the attitude
It's about justice, agreements being voluntary to both sides, and reality reflecting the true economic value of labor.
In addition, there is a long tradition here of unions protecting incompetent employees, "pay for seniority", and other unfair practices. While it's highly imperfect, non-union places at least *try* to pay for performance rather than merely how many years you sat on your ass.
I can't find the link now, I'm sorry, but there was an article several years ago comparing US unionized steel plants to non-union plants. The ONLY profitable plants were the non-union plants. Their working condition were no worse than the unionized plants, and they were succeeding against foreign competitors in a way the union plants were not. When workers are protected no matter how lax they get, they get lax.
Ultimately you don't get to have your cake and eat it too. If another competitor (say, China) is willing to have labor reflect its true economic value, and you are not, well, your jobs go to China. We're seeing that effect now, and it is killing the nation as our entire manufacturing base moves overseas.
My industry is non-union and it is one of the last remaining one where the US has a domestic presence. Coincidence? Well, I doubt it. Obviously other will disagree.
Re:This is a Complete Non Story (Score:5, Interesting)
I work as a non-union contractor in an otherwise largely-union environment. The general workers have one union and the managers have another union. Most of the people just want to get their work done and go home. I don't see too many differences between my contracting colleagues and the employees. The union is vocal, but has understood that not everyone can keep their jobs in the current environment. They accepted unpaid furloughs in lieu of actual pay rate cuts, and when the numbers clearly showed that wasn't working, they accepted that a lot of people had to be laid off. While I disagree with some of their stances, they're a reasonable union in my books.
OTOH, my dad worked in aerospace for the better part of two decades. Union actions were fairly common. He took part in them for a while until he saw union reps being driven up in towncars and limousines, wearing expensive clothes, and generally doing a lot better than he did. Eventually, he lost faith in them and started crossing the picket lines. He had an advantage that others did not, though. At more than six feet in height, looking every bit the biker that he was, and with most people knowing that he had plenty of other biker friends at the plant who had his back, no one messed with him or his truck or motorcycle. Other people who crossed the lines weren't so lucky.
Incidentally, his willingness to cross the lines and keep working got him transferred to working on military aircraft (tankers and cargo planes). He still says, many years after that company ceased to exist, that he was happier seeing through his work ethic and getting something done than being on the picket lines, losing money while union leaders haggled for weeks over a few cents an hour worth of pay or benefits.
American unions and 'accidents' (Score:3, Interesting)
It sounds lke the union movement in the US has a lot of maturing to do. Unions in Australia look after the rights of their members and a big part of this is collective bargaining. Large employers have decent sized teams working out employment conditions, and the union (or group of unions) is a reasonable counter to this. Otherwise you have a team of 5-10 professional negotiators 'negotiating' with employees one-on-one.
When industrial action is called for by the more mature unions, participation is voluntary
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The thing that's funny to me is that people realize there are bad unions but don't seem to realize that there are any bad employers. Jon Stewart mentioned this in relationship to teachers... "there are shitty teachers? yeah, I don't know if you've noticed, but there's shitty everything."
Dude, It's an Apple product (Score:4, Funny)
Re:Part timers? (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Part timers? (Score:4, Interesting)
Lets not forget Apple may report into http://www.theworknumber.com/index.asp [theworknumber.com]
Its basically a credit report about your work history, and unfortunately the employee can not see what's listed in there because they do not fall under the Fair Credit Reporting Act.
So it's entirely possible "Fired for Unionization" could be listed in there and you would not be able to do anything about it, and employers will not show you this information when they pull things up on you. So you could be a Sr Engineer and they list your title as Engineer, and you apply for another job elsewhere claiming your Sr Engineer and they will just call you a liar and move on to the next person.
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Do you know whether there's an equivalent service in the UK?
Equifax's UK site has no hints, and the DPA (data protection act) would obligate them to share any/all data they hold on an individual.
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When GM was successful, their unions aren't as greedy as they were today
Now you're talking out of your ass. The unions at GM are nowhere near as powerful today as they were when GM was wealthier. The unions have made numerous concessions over the past several decades, regardless of what Glenn Beck and Rush Limbaugh tell you.
Do you really think the unions during GM's heyday is the same as the one you see today?
They are a decidedly weaker union today than they were before. They are arguably the weakest union ever to represent GM in terms of what they have won for the workers recently in comparison to what they have conceded.
The answer is no, and if you claim to the contrary, then you really doesn't know history.
You don't seem to know history, or
Re:Is this worthy of Slashdot? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Is this worthy of Slashdot? (Score:5, Informative)
Employer-subsidized health insurance is a result of having to get arond WWII wage controls (see http://economix.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/05/22/is-employer-based-health-insurance-worth-saving/ [nytimes.com] for info). Unfortunately, it continued after the war, and the result is that people who lose their jobs lose their insurance (that being the majority of the "N milliion uninsured" figure that is bandied about).
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In the last several decades corporate profits have grown tremendously while wages have been relatively stagnant. I don't see many good answers to this. Most laws intended to alter market forces produce horrible side-effects that no one wants to admit. An easy example is the shortages caused by imposing price
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Yes, ask those Chinese workers who are paid more than the workers sitting right beside them in the same factory but who happen to be making Xbox or PS3, or some other thing. The ones who make specifically Apple stuff *are* paid more, at Apple's demand of their supplier.
Re:Wow. (Score:5, Insightful)
Your disdain for the common working man is remarkable. As is the attitude that people don't deserve better until they're up the ladder pissing down on little people. It takes everyone from the laborer to the CEO to make a successful company and ALL of these people deserve a fair deal and some dignity.
Re:Wow. (Score:4, Informative)
Re:Wow. (Score:4, Insightful)
They are not worth tons of money. There is a large pool of potential employees. You cannot expect awesome wages and awesome benefits in that situation, period. You can call it disdain. I call it fucking reality.
Show me the stone tablets where this is inscribed. Why should all the money go to shareholders or in bonuses to people who are already very well off ? Why can't a company offer awesome wages and benefits to all its employees when it can afford it like Apple clearly can ? This reality is what you make it.
You want to get paid a lot? Work a job where you're worth a lot to the employer. You can cry all you want about the big bad men at the top, but that's how it is. Supply and demand applies to labor. That's how it is. Furthermore, when these people are making better wages and getting better benefits than most in similar jobs, you can hardly say that they're getting pissed on. But go ahead, keep assigning your own meaning to what I write if that helps you continue your idiotic ranting.
So why can't solidarity figure into it ? Why make it impossible for workers to say: "this is not how I want to be treated and all of us are willing to stand up for it together" ? This is freedom of association, a basic right in Europe.
Re: (Score:3)
It's called supply and demand. It's one of those unpleasant realities, like, say, gravity. That being said, Apple IS offering awesome wages and benefits to its employees. Compare Mr. Moll's $14/hour + health benefits + discounts + matched 401K vs. what a retail employee gets at another electronics retailer. Like, say, Frys. Or BestBuy. Or Target. He's already GOT a better deal.
And, to be honest, retail sales is not a high-skill job.
As to "this is not how I want to be treated, etc."... they are free to do s
Re: (Score:3)
Show me the stone tablets where this is inscribed.
Reality isn't inscribed anywhere, it just is . If you don't like it then work to change your own situation. If you want to achieve goals or have things then you have to be willing to work for them. Few things worth having come easily or free of charge. That's the world we live in. Going around with a chip on your shoulder harms nobody but yourself. Didn't your parents teach you these things when you were small?
Why should all the money go to shareholders or in bonuses to people who are already very well off ?
It doesn't. The employees had to be paid, the capital acquired (i.e. inventory or equipment), the
Re: (Score:3)
Actually in Belgium there's a service that organizes babysitting (by independent sitters, mostly students) that makes sure there's a standard rate charged, the sitter is insured, established work conditions like tasks that will not be performed, etc. Not strictly a union I guess, though the name "gezinsbond" does translate roughly to "family union/association." My girlfriend used to do some work through them in fact, even though it was for people in her neighborhood. The country is pretty unionized, so I'm
Re: (Score:3)
The dignity part was more about DurendalMac talking about retail workers like they are the scum of the earth, losers that stumbled into their lot in life though their own incompetence and just deserve whatever crumbs get thrown at them. That kind of attitude bothers me. Probably because I come from a long line of factory workers and day laborers.
Re:Wow. (Score:4, Insightful)
I think this asshat needs to take a long, hard look at the rest of the industry. He's working a retail storefront job. He's getting paid $14/hr when hardly any other retail job is going to pay like that, and Apple happens to offer very good benefits. Medical starts from day 1 for full-time employees, at least. Want to go to school? Apple will help you do it! The employee discounts aren't bad at all, either, usually 25% off.
If the employees are happy with their renumeration and benefits then the union bid will fail. If they're unhappy, it's more likely to succeed.
In Ontario, Canada there's a good amount of car manufacturing that goes on with quite a few different companies. GM is fairly prevalent to the areas to the east of Toronto (e.g., Oshawa), and all of the plants are unionized (AFAIK). To the west of Toronto, Toyota has a manufacturing plant in Cambridge. The CAW (~UAW) has been trying to unionize it for over a decade, and every time a vote came up, the workers have rejected unionization.
If you have an enlightened employer you don't need a union. I've never worked there, but from what I've heard, Apple is generally a pretty good company to work for.
If this employee has grievances and/or problems with the job, I would hope Apple would look at them and hopefully address some of them. If they're egregious grievances, and Apple is brushing them off, then a union may be the only way to rectify things. While the labour code has certainly improved since the time of Charles Dickens, it still takes resources to fight a legal battle if you've been aggrieved, and a union has better resources than a regular schmoe—who may be forced to get a second-rate settlement because they can't the lawyer's fee for proper 'justice'.
You can certainly go too far in the power of unions, but so too can you go too far in the lack of them and the power of large companies. The trick is finding a balance between the rights & responsibilities of workers and the rights & responsibilities of companies. Demonizing one or the other completely is just silliness.
YOU ARE EXPENDABLE.
Perhaps. (I have always liked the line (supposedly) from Charles De Gaulle: The graveyards are full of indispensable men.)
However, treating your employees like cogs (or used tissues) is not a good way to run a company (IMHO), or to keep morale up. It's why unions were formed in the first place: so that employees couldn't be tossed aside while refuse, and that they were treated with some kind of respect.
Re:Wow. (Score:5, Insightful)
Unions are there not only to fight for something new, but to make sure that benefits aren't taken away without a good reason. Getting quarterly results up is not a good reason...
Re: (Score:3)
Nah, it just implies that they want their customers to believe they're hiring people a little better than expendable.
Re: (Score:3)
Utter and complete stupidity (Score:3, Insightful)
except an entire economy that's being engineered by a greedy ruling class to create a massive disenfranchised poor for their own benefit. The world's more complicated than either Adam Smith or Ayn Rand believed, and the super wealthy really are out to get you. It's what they do all day.
I have a hard time believing people are serious when they say schlock like this. Except that I realize that, yes, some people really are this stupid and paranoid.
Why, oh why, would "the rich" want to keep people from bettering themselves and making more money? More money for the general population means more money for... the rich. More people buying the products and services they make.
You're either making the very old, very silly mistake that there is a fixed amount of wealth, and that if one guy makes more
Re:Utter and complete stupidity (Score:5, Insightful)
You're misunderstanding their intentions. They don't want money (they've got that in spades), they want Power. The power to control humanity for whatever ends they see fit.
"You're either making the very old, very silly mistake that there is a fixed amount of wealth,"
You're right, wealth is not finite, but neither is human greed & lust for power.
Whatever you have, I can make myself rich by taking it away from you, no matter how small. That's because if I can take away just a small amount of wealth from a million people, I'm rich. There's an unlimited supply of asshats willing to do that. Keeping them in check is your 'price of freedom'.
To put it more succinctly: "What good is being rich if nobody's poor?"
On the subject of conspiracies, all I can say is God Damn the JFK'ers. There are real conspiracies against the working man. Lots of them. Their not even hiding the fact. You can go to the web sites of any right wing think tank and they talk openly about them. A conspiracy is just bunch of people working towards a specific goal. Stop confusing the right wing conspiracy to lower the standard of living of most Americans with nut jobs going off about JFK and space aliens. Until you can get past that they'll just divide and conqueror us.
Re: (Score:3)
Why, oh why, would "the rich" want to keep people from bettering themselves and making more money?
If everyone were wealthy, then your wealth would bring no inherent power. Because wealth is similar to a zero sum game (it essentially is for small areas) where the more others make, the less you do (like say you have the only fishing charter business on a lake, when another opens, it is likely to hurt your profits, even if there is enough business for both businesses). So if you are the only person with money, you will have less competition. If you have more money than others, then you have more power.
Re: (Score:3)
And it seems to me, Apple operates on a high margin anyway.
21.48% net profit margin in 2010: lower than both Google and Microsoft.
Re:Good. (Score:4, Insightful)
No. Unions are useful in one case, and only one case: when a lack of industry regulation puts workers in peril. Unions were once necessary to combat hazardous working conditions, unreasonable hours, and mistreatment (i.e., verbal and physical abuse). In today's industrialized countries, strong laws and regulations exist to protect employees from these perils and thus unions are, in the vast majority of cases, completely unnecessary.
Today's unions are used not for protecting workers, but instead:
- bargaining for pay raises and other benefit increases
- organizing election votes along the union's party line
- making it unduly difficult to fire under-performing employees
- making it impossible (and sometimes illegal) to hire otherwise qualified non-union employees
- requiring that a worker join the union upon employment and pay union dues, even if she desires no union representation
So, unions probably are necessary right now in some newly-industrialized countries like China where "middle-class" just means "don't have to steal food anymore." But here in the good old Magnited States of America, our society has evolved to include strong worker protection laws.
Now, even if I were to believe that most unions had a place in modern western industrialized nations, Apple Inc. employees would still pretty much the last ones in the entire universe who would be qualified to join the trade union party. I have close friends who worked in Apple stores and they certainly did not think they were mistreated. Yeah, you have to drink a lot of Apple koolaid. And yes, they said it was demanding work. But the benefits sounded quite reasonable (certainly better than what I was getting at the time for similar work) and they gained experience, solid resume material, and tons of networking. I think most any Slashdotter will agree that most entry-level I.T. and retail jobs are far worse than having to pitch Apple gear all day long.
</rant>
Okie Dokie (Score:4, Insightful)
Wages have been flat in the US for too many years. Labor in general needs to push back, and on that basis alone, I will support unions.
You should look around. The nations you speak of do have strong unions, and formal representation of labor in their politics. We could use more of that here, because people have been significantly devalued.
Citation needed (Score:5, Informative)
Sorry man. You've been swallowing a lot of dogma whole, for a considerable length of time it seems.
Over the last 30 years, the average American has been exposed to more cost and risk than they have increases in buying power per hour worked, and it's escalating.
Health care, in particular, is a huge risk point, with a large cost. Did you know we pay more than any other nation for that? Did you know we pay twice as much per capita as the next most expensive nation, which is France? Our access / per out of pocket dollar, and outcomes are far worse than theirs are.
I lost my home and all I worked for because of our health care policy. Had I lived in a nation that actually does value it's people properly, that would not have happened. And no, I was not the sick one, sadly.
Risk and cost are on the rise, with multi-national companies doing what they do best, which is push cost and risk away from the enterprise. Where does it go? On the US citizen, that's where it goes.
Clearly, you've had little real union involvement. I've worked for myself, in small business with a union, and without, and everything in between.
Secondly, average wages are far down now, if you exclude the very high percentages. For average people, the waves of outsourcing have forced them into jobs that pay far less than their old one did. Happening all over the place, and that too is escalating. New job creation is not generally family wage jobs, meaning we are moving more of our work force to poverty wages, than we are employing them at family wages.
You go ahead though. Ignore the contributions of labor to our past, and also ignore the lessons of other nations like Germany, who actually do target the welfare of Germans with their trade policy, instead of here, where we make sure our big corporations get all they want, leaving scraps for the average laborer to fight over.
Comment removed (Score:4, Informative)
Re: (Score:3)
I looked, and they successfully unionized in 2006 [ihlo.org].
Re: (Score:3)
It's an APPLE guy.
*Now* isn't the problem, but *later* is (Score:3)
The original "union" idea was indeed what this guy proposes, and good luck to him (personally, I suspect he isn't going to be working for Apple that much longer - he's publicly suggesting that all is not well at Apple which is not going to go down well with the PR guys unless they are smart enough to work *with* him instead).
The problems with unions is that they turn into a political tool as soon as they have some size, and become toys in the hands of political manipulators. At that point the primary goal