Unionized Australian Apple Store employees set to strike again

AppleInsider

Australian Apple Store employees threaten additional work stoppages and strikes as they negotiate improved wage rates.

An Apple Store in Sydney Australia

A group of around 200 employees belonging to the Retail and Fast Food Workers Union in Australia are meeting on Monday to discuss further action against Apple. The union is one of three involved in negotiations.

According to a report from Reuters, Apple proposed a workplace agreement for wage increases that was rejected by 68% of Apple workers polled. The poll was responded by 87% of the 4,000-person Australian workforce.

Apple says its minimum pay rates are 17% above the industry minimum and that full-time workers get guaranteed weekends. However, employees state that wages are not increasing enough to account for inflation, and weekends are often split rather than held over two consecutive days.

"Workers are very happy, they've been campaigning for a fair agreement for three months. Our members have been engaged in pretty serious work bans and strikes," RAFFWU secretary Josh Cullinan told Reuters by phone. "We expect members will want to endorse a series of work stoppages."

Union employees staged another one-hour walkout on October 29. A previous walkout was held on October 18.

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bloggerblog

And people wonder why everything is being automated 

krawall

How bizarre that is. "Workers are very happy. ... pretty serious work bans and strikes." Are they listening to themselves? Unions are evil.

wozwoz

If you are not happy working for Apple, go work somewhere else. The same applies to US employees who don't want to come into the office.

Anilu_777

I work retail and full-time employees do not get two-day weekends unless they’re professional (healthcare) staff. If that 17% above normal is true, the workers have nothing to complain about. 

hammeroftruth

Anilu_777 said:

I work retail and full-time employees do not get two-day weekends unless they’re professional (healthcare) staff. If that 17% above normal is true, the workers have nothing to complain about. 

What’s missing is the point Apple has made for decades that there is no way employees can get a weekend day off in retail, and all of a sudden they can. 

I don’t like unions either, but it’s amazing what can happen when you threaten a company with deep pockets with one. 

Why does it have to escalate to this??

hammeroftruth

bloggerblog said:

And people wonder why everything is being automated 

Yeah it’s so automated that Covid doesn’t affect anything anymore right?

get serious

Apple Retail has come along way in the 15 years I've been involved. Way back employees often didn't get their schedules until one or two days before the new work week. "Needs of the business" was the reasoning when in reality it was overloaded store leaders and short (read cheap) staffing. Store Leaders were still manually writing schedules up until 2017 in stores with 100+ employees. Retail was the redheaded stepchild of Apple until the battery replacement program when tens of millions of batteries had to be replaced. Corporate then began to realize the power of personal customer service. Apple has come a long way and are way better than a lot of employers. That said they've been weak at store leadership training. Apple is about experiential training and learning from mistakes. When managing people those mistakes impact peoples lives. If it weren't for employee's dedication to the Apple mythos their problems would be much worse.

22july2013

Has their current contract expired? If not, a strike would be illegal; but if so, Apple can stop paying them at any time. I.e., Apple can create a lockout.

sbdude

Hire scabs. The nice thing about retail employees is that they're 100% replaceable.

bloggerblog

Well paid employees is a good thing for Apple because the better the pay the higher the employee's commitment. Apple can leverage that to hire high quality people. However, the problem with this type of unions is they leverage holding companies hostage and tarnishing their reputation instead of planning out proper roadmaps, it's closer to a mafia than an organization. I do not see how these actions can go well for them. You can still find well organized unions in Germany and Switzerland where you don't see this type of misbehavior.
I previously worked for a union in the US and when they got a little non-union competition they couldn't compete and tragically shut down and left the few good people they had looking for work. I remember some of the employees were taking advantage of their seniority positions and sabotage the night crew and would spend two hours on something that would take 15-30 minutes so they can get overtime which was 2.5x pay.

lkrupp

bloggerblog said:

Well paid employees is a good thing for Apple because the better the pay the higher the employee's commitment.

Complete and utter bullshit fantasy. I was in a union for 34 years and can testify that pay and benefits have nothing to do with it. If anything a union removes incentives and instills the idea that performance and commitment is not important. When the guy working in the same job title as you gets the same pay but produces half of what you do you start wondering why am I working so hard. 

bloggerblog

lkrupp said:

bloggerblog said:

Well paid employees is a good thing for Apple because the better the pay the higher the employee's commitment.

Complete and utter bullshit fantasy. I was in a union for 34 years and can testify that pay and benefits have nothing to do with it. If anything a union removes incentives and instills the idea that performance and commitment is not important. When the guy working in the same job title as you gets the same pay but produces half of what you do you start wondering why am I working so hard. 

Wasn’t talking about union employees but well paid employees who regard their job as a viable career instead of a stepping stone. 

genovelle

hammeroftruth said:

Anilu_777 said:

I work retail and full-time employees do not get two-day weekends unless they’re professional (healthcare) staff. If that 17% above normal is true, the workers have nothing to complain about. 

What’s missing is the point Apple has made for decades that there is no way employees can get a weekend day off in retail, and all of a sudden they can. 

I don’t like unions either, but it’s amazing what can happen when you threaten a company with deep pockets with one. 

Why does it have to escalate to this??

They need to hire more part timers and split the hours of the full time staff. The problem is when you let the full time staff off on weekends, they are off when most needed. The weekend is the busiest times so all hands need to be on deck. I would make weekends a 50% salary increase. Or offer a $1000 bonus to any employees who works a certain number of weekend hours per month. Don’t want to work when we need you most, you will make less. 

Hedware

Hey American idiots here commenting on Australia. Just to enlighten you soft folks, Australia is a different country to USA and has different industrial/labour laws (yes I spelt both words correctly). Apple Australia is going to have a difficult job emulating Apple US labour practices and finding anything useful in your rabid views. 

laytech

Hedware said:

Hey American idiots here commenting on Australia. Just to enlighten you soft folks, Australia is a different country to USA and has different industrial/labour laws (yes I spelt both words correctly). Apple Australia is going to have a difficult job emulating Apple US labour practices and finding anything useful in your rabid views. 

Agreed but doesn't make it ok for Union's to pitch their benefits in misleading ways. I read the unions demands and it is well out of touch with reality. They just can't help themselves, pushing and pushing for extras that are just out of touch. I am all for pay rises and benefits but union just can't find that balance. They are their own worst enemies and when a company is profitable, they think they owe to them.

I personally think every company should have profit share scheme for every employee but that is an argument for another day. One thing for sure, Unions sure know how to make themselves redundant. In future, they will look back and go, wow! We really cocked that up. Case in point the car industry.