“We’re not an understaffed Starbucks.” He wrote that he understood the calls for “more money” but that “nothing with a union is guaranteed.” “We’re not an Amazon warehouse that didn’t get sick leave or bathroom breaks during the pandemic,” the employee wrote. In May, store managers increased their counteroffensive, posting a letter in the break room from an employee of the Grand Central Terminal store who expressed opposition to unions, Mr. Bowles distributed red wristbands that said “Stronger Together.” They polled staff on whether they should hold a vote to unionize and won twice the support they needed. They drafted a letter outlining goals, including fair compensation, career development opportunities, improved benefits and a bigger voice in safety policies related to Covid-19. She became obsessed with the company, tuning into hourslong product events to feed a growing interest in “the way they worked.” She bought her first iPhone at 16 with money she earned working at McDonald’s. She started working at Apple because she loved its products. Rhodes view them as Apple’s physical connection to the wider world. About 6 percent of Apple’s sales come from its retail locations, roughly half the share before the pandemic, according to Loup Ventures, a firm that specializes in tech research.ĭespite the stores’ waning financial importance, employees like Ms. “We deeply value everything they bring to Apple,” he said.Īpple has countered the union push even as online orders diminish the importance of its stores. Rosenstock said the company provided numerous benefits to retail employees, including health care, tuition reimbursement and family leave. And employees who are on the fence or against the union push were reluctant to speak with The New York Times. O’Brien and Alex Burrus, the manager of the Cumberland Mall store, which is about 10 miles from downtown Atlanta. Josh Rosenstock, an Apple spokesman, declined a request for interviews with Ms. The video was reported on earlier by The Verge. “I worry 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,” Deirdre O’Brien, Apple’s senior vice president of retail, said in a video sent to many of the company’s roughly 65,000 retail employees. And last week, its leaders urged employees not to unionize and said they would increase wages to $22 an hour from $20.
It also has furnished store managers with talking points, including that unionizing could result in fewer promotions and inflexible hours, which was reported earlier by Vice. Apple stores in Towson, Md., and New York City’s Grand Central Terminal are still expected to hold votes in coming weeks, and more than two dozen more have expressed interest in organizing, union leaders say.Īpple has hired Littler Mendelson, an employment law firm, to blunt the labor push.
But late last week, they suspended the election. Rhodes and colleagues were expected to be the first Apple store to vote on joining a union this Thursday. The stresses unleashed by those forces also have roiled the tech sector, helping employees emboldened by a tight labor market win support for unions in the video game industry and at an Amazon warehouse on Staten Island. Unionization has been on the rise at Starbucks, REI and Dollar General as employees feel the squeeze of inflation and tire of pandemic risks. Two decades after redefining retail with sleek architecture and concierge tech support, Apple is being confronted by the industry’s latest trend: organized labor. The exchanges cut to the heart of a contest with implications for some 272 Apple stores across the United States. “Any time someone asked me a question,” she said, “he would come with an opinion about unions that didn’t apply to us at all.”
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