Posts tagged Apple
Unionized Apple store workers want you to start tipping them
May 5, 2023 // Workers at Apple's first unionized store in suburban Baltimore are pushing for a tipping system. The proposal calls for customers to tip in increments of 3%, 5%, or a custom amount. It's part of a series of new proposals from the union ahead of contract negotiations.
Barnes & Noble Education Workers Seek to Unionize, Extending Organizing Wave
April 10, 2023 // Workers say they’ve signed up most of the roughly 70 employees at the store on Rutgers University’s campus. After announcing their organizing campaign to local management, they plan to submit a filing Thursday asking the US National Labor Relations Board to conduct a unionization election. Employees are petitioning to join the Retail, Wholesale and Department Store Union, which currently represents retail workers at Macy’s Inc., H&M Hennes & Mauritz AB and, most recently, Recreational Equipment Inc., where it first secured a foothold last year in New York City. Barnes & Noble Education didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment. The company, which retailer Barnes & Noble Inc. spun off in 2015, operates 785 physical bookstores for students and hundreds of online bookstores. It also has exclusive deals with schools and universities to distribute course materials.
Amazon union faces division, delay a year after historic victory
April 3, 2023 // However, the visible presence of union support within the Staten Island warehouse has diminished significantly since the victory last year, according to three longtime workers at the facility. "Right after the election, there were about a dozen people I saw on the first floor wearing ALU t-shirts and yellow 'organizer' vests," Natalie Monarrez, a worker who considers herself pro-union and initially organized with the ALU but ultimately voted against unionization due to concerns regarding its leadership, told ABC News. "In the past few months, I haven't seen any ALU t-shirts or yellow vests," she added. Smalls, who has traveled nationwide over the past year to speaking engagements and meetings with Amazon workers at other warehouses, has received criticism from some union activists over a perceived lack of focus on organizing within the Staten Island facility, he said.
Tesla workers trying to unionize are turning to the group that launched Starbucks’ nationwide union wave
February 16, 2023 // The Buffalo factory has about 2,000 employees, about 800 of whom work for the company’s Autopilot division, the technology that allows Tesla’s cars to maneuver controls automatically. The remainder of the workers are part of manufacturing or other functions, according to the Wall Street Journal. Since December 2021, when Starbucks workers first organized in Buffalo, over 250 more stores have voted in favor of unionizing. The company has adopted a hardline stance towards its unions. Starbucks has yet to agree to or sign any contracts with its unions, even though it has said it’s open to discussions. With executives pushing back and negotiations faltering, the unionization effort in the world’s largest coffeehouse chain has begun to slow in recent months with a softer pace of contract bargaining.
Labor Law Reform Is Needed for Unions to Succeed
February 9, 2023 // U.S. Department of Labor reported last week that union membership levels have actually declined over the last year and are now at their lowest level ever — 6% in the private sector.
Exclusive: YouTube contractors to strike over forced return to office
February 6, 2023 // Cognizant says that the workers' contracts have always stated that the jobs were in-office jobs and that it communicated to workers since Dec. 2021 that it would provide 90 days notice when employees were expected back in the office. "Cognizant respects the right of our associates to disagree with our policies, and to protest them lawfully," the company said in a statement to Axios. "However, it is disappointing that some of our associates have chosen to strike over a return to office policy that has been communicated to them repeatedly since December 2021."
Apple execs violated labor law after remarks that interfered with addressing workplace issues, NLRB finds
February 3, 2023 // Apple created measures that ‘tend to interfere with, restrain or coerce employees’ from acting on their rights to address workplace problems together, labor officials say
Union membership grows the fastest of any state in Tennessee over the past two years
January 24, 2023 // The number of Tennessee workers belonging to labor unions has grown over the past two years at the fastest rate of any state in the country. Fueled by a growth in unionized government employees, building trades and autoworkers, union membership in Tennessee jumped by more than 39% from the pandemic low in 2020 to reach 163,000 members last year, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. For all its gains, however, organized labor still represents only a fraction of workers in Tennessee, especially in the private sector. Last year, 5.5% of all workers across Tennessee were union members, or only about half of the 10.1% share of workers nationwide who belong to a labor union, according to the statistics bureau.
US union membership rate hits all-time low despite campaigns
January 23, 2023 // The number of workers belonging to a union actually increased by 1.9% to 14.3 million. But that failed to keep pace with higher overall employment rates. The number of wage- and salary-earning workers rose by 3.9%, the government said. U.S. union membership has been falling steadily for decades. In 1983, the first year that comparable data is available, the union membership rate was 20.1%, the government said. Public-sector workers, like police and teachers, had the highest unionization rates last year, at 33%. Just 6% of private-sector workers were unionized.