Of course not. I never said unions are ruining America. I'm saying they abuse their power. Business abusing power is why unions were originally created in the first place. Now we are seeing the other side of it. Apple stores are doing just fine without a union.
Unions abusing power? Really? Show me where they're being abusive? Union busting at a all time high in this country, and for what reason? For that holy profit margin.
Unions can be a bad thing. But in this case it is exactly what Apple retail needs. Employees continually perform VERY, let me repat, VERY well. Apple is a strict company and does not tolerate "sub-par" employees.
However, the employees put up with A LOT of crap and work very hard to sell for the company. Many employees have "million dollar" years, and guess what, they barely make in the low teens/ hour. It's ridiculous.
I can accurately say that Apple retail employees that are full time barely bring in 30k/year. For a company that is valued higher than any other tech company, its purely disgusting. Employees are coached to believe working there is a labor of love.
Basically its good for college students. But it is not somewhere to make a career anymore. All the employees that were there on DAY ONE are now managers or in other higher positions making a good middle class income.
The sad thing is that people are beating down the door to work at Apple so it doesn't matter if employees quit. A union is what they need to threaten a complete staff walkout. Then Apple might pay attention.
Employers are not slave-owners, friend. There are labor laws, regulations, etc. If an employer isn't following the law, there are places to report them to. If you've been treated unfairly, feel free to sue.
There's opportunity abound. If you live in a small city and you're limited to what jobs are available, well, then move. Seriously, if you want to be a famous actor, come to Los Angeles. If you want to be an animator, go to Georgia. If you want to be a game developer, Seattle is calling you. *YOU* have to make the effort if you want a good living, not rely on some organization to decide that for you.
If you don't like your job, find a new one. Not qualified to find a better one? Go to school and get some training. Don't want to go through the effort and work hard? Deal with your situation, then, and stop complaining that your HIGH-DEMAND job forces you to work so hard when there are tons of applicants just waiting to replace you.
You act like all that is easy. Like anyone can just go to Hollywood and become an actor. How many millions have failed. Labor laws dont have to be broken in order to make a place of employment unbearable. Even then the burden of proof is on the employee. And ummm check the umemployment rate my friend, there are NOT opportunities abound, schooling isnt the answer. How many are going to graduate this or next month to a dismal job market?
Steve Jobs should immediately fire any and all people who seek to unionize. If an employee is unhappy for whatever reason, then they are free to quit. Nobody forced them to take the job.
Unions are disgusting and they should be abolished and made illegal.
So much for America being a free country. What a joke. Freedom extends to all areas not just the bits that you like. So that includes allowing freedom to join a union. Workers in every other Western Country have the right to be in a union. So either let people have complete freedom of association or shut the F### up about freedom.
It wouldn't take a union of all retail employees everywhere. If Apple Store employees unionized they could shut down Apple's retail operations if they went on strike. That's plenty of leverage right there. And a successful strike would inspire employees at other retailers to unionize.
I don't agree. You may remember a grocery cashier strike a few years ago. Not one grocery store closed. They eventually settled but the point is that in order to unionize you need to be part of a larger membership and have specialized skills if you want your strike to be effective. Unions pay their members a minimum wage while they are on strike. A freshly minted union made up of exclusively Apple retail employees is going to be hard pressed to come up with the revenue to support them through an extended walk out. Furthermore the Apple employees have no skills and are easily replaced. What part of that scenario do you not understand?
If you work or have worked for Apple Retail, speak up. If not, stfu.
I worked Apple retail and I hope their employees unionize.
Have you ever seen how full those stores get? Do you know what contradictory BS we go through to keep our jobs? Do you know how little they are paid and how many hours they get?
Apple Retail is like high school: it's full of cliques. If you don't constantly improve your metrics, you get warnings. If you spend more than the allotted time with a client, you get warnings. If you don't sell MobileMe and Applecare, you get warnings. All that for typical retail wages with no commission or bonuses and almost zero opportunity to advance: Apple's policy is never to promote from within.
Turnover in Apple Retail employees is enough to show that there's a serious problem. And as for the facebook page and Twitter account, any Apple employee caught saying anything about the company online is fired without warning.
Hmmm. If the situation is that bad, and you recognize it's that bad....
THEN DON'T WORK THERE!
Because, if you continue to work there, fully aware of how bad the situation is, then YOU are deciding that the benefits of the job (such as monetary compensation) outweigh the negative aspects. YOU made that decision.
Alternatively, you could make the decision NOT to continue working there. If enough other people feel as you do, and also leave, then Apple may decide that they need to offer a better compensatory package to their employees. If, however, other people apply for a job, replace you in your vacated position, and agree to the terms of employment, you should realize that just because you consider Apple's compensation for your work unacceptable, others do not. Perhaps that means that you need to reexamine your own expectations.
aGREED 100% FIRE THOSE BASTARDS and take away the FREE IPHONES and IPADS they got when these things came out and EVERY APPLE WORKER got one for FREE...
WTF???? I would LOVE TO WORK AT THE APPLE STORE ... friggin MORONS!!
I bet my yearly salary (although it wouldn't be much since i'm not working) that these are Micro$H!t ex-employees and self HATING ex-MS windoze users who lost their jobs and now are at the APPLE store .. go work at walmart
You seriously have no clue what you're talking about. I was an apple employee from 2006 until a few months ago and the only hardware that I ever got for free was an iPod shuffle in 2006 and a first gen iPhone back in 2007. At no time did Apple ever give employees a free iPad, hell we had to wait almost 7 months to get our standard 25% discount on the first gen iPad. At the time I left(April11th), we still had to pay full price for them like everyone else.
BTW, I left the company on good terms and I'm still good friends with all of my old managers and co-workers. So you can just drop that argument. I will say that in my almost 5 years with Apple my starting pay and raises never amounted to anything close to what they were paying new hires when I left. That is a big reason why I left. I had many years of good reviews which were followed by a 3% raise cap. There is something wrong when a part time 18 year old college student getting a full ride from mom & dad is making more than a 29 year old married man with a mortgage and family. They would constantly claim that they couldn't go above a 3% raise, but members of management would always seems to find a way to give multiple thousand dollar raises to their close friends that were salespeople. That and two of my store managers were notorious for going to casino's and having affairs with other married employees. There fellow gambling buddies were bumped to hourly rates nearly two and a half times what I made.. for the same job and half the time with the company.
It's the lack of control over upper management that pisses a lot of Apple employees off. They have the ability to give their favorites everything and if you're not there best friends too, you're screwed. There are no checks and balances within the upper retail management system.
As far as your comment goes... Work for the company for nearly half a decade and then you're allowed to talk shit about what employees complain about. Until then, you are just basing everything you say off of a pathetic love for a logo, a half dead CEO, some decent engineering, and a whole lot of marketing.
I don't agree. You may remember a grocery cashier strike a few years ago. Not one grocery store closed. They eventually settled but the point is that in order to unionize you need to be part of a larger membership and have specialized skills if you want your strike to be effective. Unions pay their members a minimum wage while they are on strike. A freshly minted union made up of exclusively Apple retail employees is going to be hard pressed to come up with the revenue to support them through an extended walk out. Furthermore the Apple employees have no skills and are easily replaced. What part of that scenario do you not understand?
Agreed.
I'm guessing that's it's not difficult for Apple (remember? Apple? ...the most successful tech company in the world with gobs of brand identification throughout the world) to recruit new candidates to replace former, striking, union employees.
If you work or have worked for Apple Retail, speak up. If not, stfu.
I worked Apple retail and I hope their employees unionize.
Have you ever seen how full those stores get? Do you know what contradictory BS we go through to keep our jobs? Do you know how little they are paid and how many hours they get?
Apple Retail is like high school: it's full of cliques. If you don't constantly improve your metrics, you get warnings. If you spend more than the allotted time with a client, you get warnings. If you don't sell MobileMe and Applecare, you get warnings. All that for typical retail wages with no commission or bonuses and almost zero opportunity to advance: Apple's policy is never to promote from within.
Turnover in Apple Retail employees is enough to show that there's a serious problem. And as for the facebook page and Twitter account, any Apple employee caught saying anything about the company online is fired without warning.
That is such bullshit. I know of several people who quickly climbed the ranks within the Apple Stores and were promoted to national manager positions.
So much for America being a free country. What a joke. Freedom extends to all areas not just the bits that you like. So that includes allowing freedom to join a union. Workers in every other Western Country have the right to be in a union. So either let people have complete freedom of association or shut the F### up about freedom.
Who said anything about freedom? No country in the entire world offers 100% freedom. The US isn't 100% free, I can't even play a simple game of poker online if I wanted to.
Laws are passed all of the time restricting the freedom of people. Ironically enough, some of those laws and restrictions are heavily supported by unions, such as universal healthcare. If that's the game that those radical thugs wish to play, then others can play the same game too, and I am for banning things that I don't like, and I don't like unions. I wish to see them gone.
No they're not, in many ways Unions provide a better product and service, while at the same time improves employee loyalty ( exception the U.S. auto industry ). A good example is the U.S. Walmart versus the Union German Walmart which offers the same products with much higher employee and customer satisfaction.
In the U.S. the labor union brought us the two day weekend.
I have no problem with voluntary unions, but unions that force you to join whether you want to or not are criminal enterprises, as far as I'm concerned.
Oh, and federal unions should definitely be illegal. Unions are supposed to serve employees to bargain and negotiate with employers for better working conditions and wages. There is no competition for the government, so the only purpose is to fleece taxpayers without the benefit of counter-balancing market forces.
You act like all that is easy. Like anyone can just go to Hollywood and become an actor. How many millions have failed. Labor laws dont have to be broken in order to make a place of employment unbearable. Even then the burden of proof is on the employee. And ummm check the umemployment rate my friend, there are NOT opportunities abound, schooling isnt the answer. How many are going to graduate this or next month to a dismal job market?
I oversimplified for the sake of the point, dude. Not everyone who moves to Hollywood is going to be a star, obviously.
I'm not blind, nor am I privileged. Of course I'm aware of the unemployment rate. You know what I've done? Got myself more education. I'm not necessarily talking about college, rather any kind of education - trade schools, certification classes at extended campuses, things that can be done on evenings after work to spruce up my resume and increase my capabilities. I work to make myself more valuable, which is what one needs to do in a recession in order to keep a job. Yeah, unemployment is high, but people are getting hired for jobs every single day. Its not all doom and gloom.
And as I've said in the past, a "union" doesn't guarantee "better." I worked for one as a kid, and in my case the union worked AGAINST me. The supermarket I worked for had set aside such ridiculously high wages for legacy workers before the big strike in 2003 that they had barely any left to pay new hires like myself. That union worked very hard to protect itself and its legacy constituents, but did very little if anything to help me... besides taking a $500 "initiation fee" and a constant percentage of my paycheck every week. In some circles they call that "racketeering."
Laws are in place for a reason. Its not perfect, but then again nothing is. Unions aren't perfect either, and most of them (read: not all of them) are irrelevant nowadays. If I can agree that labor laws aren't perfect, certainly you must agree that unions aren't always the answer either.
I'm guessing that's it's not difficult for Apple (remember? Apple? ...the most successful tech company in the world with gobs of brand identification throughout the world) to recruit new candidates to replace former, striking, union employees.
Another thing to consider is that most Apple stores are in malls which are private property so even if they did go on strike there would be few locations where the picketers could be directly in front of the Apple store.
You seriously have no clue what you're talking about. I was an apple employee from 2006 until a few months ago and the only hardware that I ever got for free was an iPod shuffle in 2006 and a first gen iPhone back in 2007. At no time did Apple ever give employees a free iPad, hell we had to wait almost 7 months to get our standard 25% discount on the first gen iPad. At the time I left(April11th), we still had to pay full price for them like everyone else.
BTW, I left the company on good terms and I'm still good friends with all of my old managers and co-workers. So you can just drop that argument. I will say that in my almost 5 years with Apple my starting pay and raises never amounted to anything close to what they were paying new hires when I left. That is a big reason why I left. I had many years of good reviews which were followed by a 3% raise cap. There is something wrong when a part time 18 year old college student getting a full ride from mom & dad is making more than a 29 year old married man with a mortgage and family. They would constantly claim that they couldn't go above a 3% raise, but members of management would always seems to find a way to give multiple thousand dollar raises to their close friends that were salespeople. That and two of my store managers were notorious for going to casino's and having affairs with other married employees. There fellow gambling buddies were bumped to hourly rates nearly two and a half times what I made.. for the same job and half the time with the company.
It's the lack of control over upper management that pisses a lot of Apple employees off. They have the ability to give their favorites everything and if you're not there best friends too, you're screwed. There are no checks and balances within the upper retail management system.
As far as your comment goes... Work for the company for nearly half a decade and then you're allowed to talk shit about what employees complain about. Until then, you are just basing everything you say off of a pathetic love for a logo, a half dead CEO, some decent engineering, and a whole lot of marketing.
Chalk your time up to getting on the job experience. And regarding the "favoritism" charge... guess what, EVERYWHERE PEOPLE WORK IT'S THE SAME. Some people know how to make friends with their bosses better. So what? That's life.
I really don't want to come off as anti-union because I am not, especially when it comes to skilled workers whether they be civil servants or specialized workers or less sophisticated laborers such as janitorial or sanitation workers. My previous comments are of the practical nature relating to how can they manage the logistics and where are the revenues going to come from.
I do want to share my own personal story about unions.
As many of the regulars here may know my career is in the medical business. When I first graduated from college my first job was in a hospital. Forgive the dated context but at that time hospitals were just beginning to deploy computers in their operating rooms which is where I worked. My position was to maintain and operate the computers and since I was the low man in seniority my shift was swing and graveyard on the weekends. Since it was a new field and there was no job description in the union for my job I was put into the nurse's union for lack of a better classification.
I saw many car accident victims in my work and I was passionate about doing the best job I could in serving the hospital, the surgeons and the patients.
A few years later the nurse's union decided to go on strike for better wages and I was required to join the picket line. I was very upset about it because I felt that if no one was there to run the computers during surgery, seriously injured victims may not receive the level of care they needed. I decided to not strike and I went to work anyway. Indeed there were several emergencies where I felt that I contributed to the success of critical treatments during that time.
After a few weeks the strike was over but because I did not honor the union picket line none of the nurses were allowed to speak to me. It eventually led me to resign and I moved into a medical field which was not unionized.
Bottom line is unions are fine but ethical and moral responsibility trumps politics and finance every time.
I can accurately say that Apple retail employees that are full time barely bring in 30k/year. For a company that is valued higher than any other tech company, its purely disgusting.
Your post if so off-base at so many different levels and in such stunning ways that all one can say is.... disgusting.
Your post if so off-base at so many different levels and in such stunning ways that all one can say is.... disgusting.
Then spend five minutes and type... Are afraid of your argument being challanged? But keep in mind your not everyone and your experience is unique, just like the op you responded to should have kept in mind.
Comments
Of course not. I never said unions are ruining America. I'm saying they abuse their power. Business abusing power is why unions were originally created in the first place. Now we are seeing the other side of it. Apple stores are doing just fine without a union.
Unions abusing power? Really? Show me where they're being abusive? Union busting at a all time high in this country, and for what reason? For that holy profit margin.
Shoot if every company were like that there would be no need for unions.
We had 3 founding objectives:
1) to return a fair profit to our investors
2) to provide the best products and services to our customers
3) to have fun
We did pretty well in some good (and not so good) years -- 1978-1989 -- then sold our interest and retired.
Very rewarding!
However, the employees put up with A LOT of crap and work very hard to sell for the company. Many employees have "million dollar" years, and guess what, they barely make in the low teens/ hour. It's ridiculous.
I can accurately say that Apple retail employees that are full time barely bring in 30k/year. For a company that is valued higher than any other tech company, its purely disgusting. Employees are coached to believe working there is a labor of love.
Basically its good for college students. But it is not somewhere to make a career anymore. All the employees that were there on DAY ONE are now managers or in other higher positions making a good middle class income.
The sad thing is that people are beating down the door to work at Apple so it doesn't matter if employees quit. A union is what they need to threaten a complete staff walkout. Then Apple might pay attention.
Employers are not slave-owners, friend. There are labor laws, regulations, etc. If an employer isn't following the law, there are places to report them to. If you've been treated unfairly, feel free to sue.
There's opportunity abound. If you live in a small city and you're limited to what jobs are available, well, then move. Seriously, if you want to be a famous actor, come to Los Angeles. If you want to be an animator, go to Georgia. If you want to be a game developer, Seattle is calling you. *YOU* have to make the effort if you want a good living, not rely on some organization to decide that for you.
If you don't like your job, find a new one. Not qualified to find a better one? Go to school and get some training. Don't want to go through the effort and work hard? Deal with your situation, then, and stop complaining that your HIGH-DEMAND job forces you to work so hard when there are tons of applicants just waiting to replace you.
You act like all that is easy. Like anyone can just go to Hollywood and become an actor. How many millions have failed. Labor laws dont have to be broken in order to make a place of employment unbearable. Even then the burden of proof is on the employee. And ummm check the umemployment rate my friend, there are NOT opportunities abound, schooling isnt the answer. How many are going to graduate this or next month to a dismal job market?
Steve Jobs should immediately fire any and all people who seek to unionize. If an employee is unhappy for whatever reason, then they are free to quit. Nobody forced them to take the job.
Unions are disgusting and they should be abolished and made illegal.
So much for America being a free country. What a joke. Freedom extends to all areas not just the bits that you like. So that includes allowing freedom to join a union. Workers in every other Western Country have the right to be in a union. So either let people have complete freedom of association or shut the F### up about freedom.
It wouldn't take a union of all retail employees everywhere. If Apple Store employees unionized they could shut down Apple's retail operations if they went on strike. That's plenty of leverage right there. And a successful strike would inspire employees at other retailers to unionize.
I don't agree. You may remember a grocery cashier strike a few years ago. Not one grocery store closed. They eventually settled but the point is that in order to unionize you need to be part of a larger membership and have specialized skills if you want your strike to be effective. Unions pay their members a minimum wage while they are on strike. A freshly minted union made up of exclusively Apple retail employees is going to be hard pressed to come up with the revenue to support them through an extended walk out. Furthermore the Apple employees have no skills and are easily replaced. What part of that scenario do you not understand?
You do realize that Honda sells more cars in the United States than in the rest of the world combined including Japan?
Perhaps you could explain this from Honda website for 2008, the year we have been discussing:
U.S. Sales: 1,428
Rest of World: 2,351
Source: http://world.honda.com/news/2009/c09...uction-Result/
If you work or have worked for Apple Retail, speak up. If not, stfu.
I worked Apple retail and I hope their employees unionize.
Have you ever seen how full those stores get? Do you know what contradictory BS we go through to keep our jobs? Do you know how little they are paid and how many hours they get?
Apple Retail is like high school: it's full of cliques. If you don't constantly improve your metrics, you get warnings. If you spend more than the allotted time with a client, you get warnings. If you don't sell MobileMe and Applecare, you get warnings. All that for typical retail wages with no commission or bonuses and almost zero opportunity to advance: Apple's policy is never to promote from within.
Turnover in Apple Retail employees is enough to show that there's a serious problem. And as for the facebook page and Twitter account, any Apple employee caught saying anything about the company online is fired without warning.
Hmmm. If the situation is that bad, and you recognize it's that bad....
THEN DON'T WORK THERE!
Because, if you continue to work there, fully aware of how bad the situation is, then YOU are deciding that the benefits of the job (such as monetary compensation) outweigh the negative aspects. YOU made that decision.
Alternatively, you could make the decision NOT to continue working there. If enough other people feel as you do, and also leave, then Apple may decide that they need to offer a better compensatory package to their employees. If, however, other people apply for a job, replace you in your vacated position, and agree to the terms of employment, you should realize that just because you consider Apple's compensation for your work unacceptable, others do not. Perhaps that means that you need to reexamine your own expectations.
This really isn't that difficult to understand.
aGREED 100% FIRE THOSE BASTARDS and take away the FREE IPHONES and IPADS they got when these things came out and EVERY APPLE WORKER got one for FREE...
WTF???? I would LOVE TO WORK AT THE APPLE STORE ... friggin MORONS!!
I bet my yearly salary (although it wouldn't be much since i'm not working) that these are Micro$H!t ex-employees and self HATING ex-MS windoze users who lost their jobs and now are at the APPLE store .. go work at walmart
You seriously have no clue what you're talking about. I was an apple employee from 2006 until a few months ago and the only hardware that I ever got for free was an iPod shuffle in 2006 and a first gen iPhone back in 2007. At no time did Apple ever give employees a free iPad, hell we had to wait almost 7 months to get our standard 25% discount on the first gen iPad. At the time I left(April11th), we still had to pay full price for them like everyone else.
BTW, I left the company on good terms and I'm still good friends with all of my old managers and co-workers. So you can just drop that argument. I will say that in my almost 5 years with Apple my starting pay and raises never amounted to anything close to what they were paying new hires when I left. That is a big reason why I left. I had many years of good reviews which were followed by a 3% raise cap. There is something wrong when a part time 18 year old college student getting a full ride from mom & dad is making more than a 29 year old married man with a mortgage and family. They would constantly claim that they couldn't go above a 3% raise, but members of management would always seems to find a way to give multiple thousand dollar raises to their close friends that were salespeople. That and two of my store managers were notorious for going to casino's and having affairs with other married employees. There fellow gambling buddies were bumped to hourly rates nearly two and a half times what I made.. for the same job and half the time with the company.
It's the lack of control over upper management that pisses a lot of Apple employees off. They have the ability to give their favorites everything and if you're not there best friends too, you're screwed. There are no checks and balances within the upper retail management system.
As far as your comment goes... Work for the company for nearly half a decade and then you're allowed to talk shit about what employees complain about. Until then, you are just basing everything you say off of a pathetic love for a logo, a half dead CEO, some decent engineering, and a whole lot of marketing.
I don't agree. You may remember a grocery cashier strike a few years ago. Not one grocery store closed. They eventually settled but the point is that in order to unionize you need to be part of a larger membership and have specialized skills if you want your strike to be effective. Unions pay their members a minimum wage while they are on strike. A freshly minted union made up of exclusively Apple retail employees is going to be hard pressed to come up with the revenue to support them through an extended walk out. Furthermore the Apple employees have no skills and are easily replaced. What part of that scenario do you not understand?
Agreed.
I'm guessing that's it's not difficult for Apple (remember? Apple? ...the most successful tech company in the world with gobs of brand identification throughout the world) to recruit new candidates to replace former, striking, union employees.
If you work or have worked for Apple Retail, speak up. If not, stfu.
I worked Apple retail and I hope their employees unionize.
Have you ever seen how full those stores get? Do you know what contradictory BS we go through to keep our jobs? Do you know how little they are paid and how many hours they get?
Apple Retail is like high school: it's full of cliques. If you don't constantly improve your metrics, you get warnings. If you spend more than the allotted time with a client, you get warnings. If you don't sell MobileMe and Applecare, you get warnings. All that for typical retail wages with no commission or bonuses and almost zero opportunity to advance: Apple's policy is never to promote from within.
Turnover in Apple Retail employees is enough to show that there's a serious problem. And as for the facebook page and Twitter account, any Apple employee caught saying anything about the company online is fired without warning.
That is such bullshit. I know of several people who quickly climbed the ranks within the Apple Stores and were promoted to national manager positions.
So much for America being a free country. What a joke. Freedom extends to all areas not just the bits that you like. So that includes allowing freedom to join a union. Workers in every other Western Country have the right to be in a union. So either let people have complete freedom of association or shut the F### up about freedom.
Who said anything about freedom? No country in the entire world offers 100% freedom. The US isn't 100% free, I can't even play a simple game of poker online if I wanted to.
Laws are passed all of the time restricting the freedom of people. Ironically enough, some of those laws and restrictions are heavily supported by unions, such as universal healthcare. If that's the game that those radical thugs wish to play, then others can play the same game too, and I am for banning things that I don't like, and I don't like unions. I wish to see them gone.
No they're not, in many ways Unions provide a better product and service, while at the same time improves employee loyalty ( exception the U.S. auto industry ). A good example is the U.S. Walmart versus the Union German Walmart which offers the same products with much higher employee and customer satisfaction.
In the U.S. the labor union brought us the two day weekend.
I have no problem with voluntary unions, but unions that force you to join whether you want to or not are criminal enterprises, as far as I'm concerned.
Oh, and federal unions should definitely be illegal. Unions are supposed to serve employees to bargain and negotiate with employers for better working conditions and wages. There is no competition for the government, so the only purpose is to fleece taxpayers without the benefit of counter-balancing market forces.
You act like all that is easy. Like anyone can just go to Hollywood and become an actor. How many millions have failed. Labor laws dont have to be broken in order to make a place of employment unbearable. Even then the burden of proof is on the employee. And ummm check the umemployment rate my friend, there are NOT opportunities abound, schooling isnt the answer. How many are going to graduate this or next month to a dismal job market?
I oversimplified for the sake of the point, dude. Not everyone who moves to Hollywood is going to be a star, obviously.
I'm not blind, nor am I privileged. Of course I'm aware of the unemployment rate. You know what I've done? Got myself more education. I'm not necessarily talking about college, rather any kind of education - trade schools, certification classes at extended campuses, things that can be done on evenings after work to spruce up my resume and increase my capabilities. I work to make myself more valuable, which is what one needs to do in a recession in order to keep a job. Yeah, unemployment is high, but people are getting hired for jobs every single day. Its not all doom and gloom.
And as I've said in the past, a "union" doesn't guarantee "better." I worked for one as a kid, and in my case the union worked AGAINST me. The supermarket I worked for had set aside such ridiculously high wages for legacy workers before the big strike in 2003 that they had barely any left to pay new hires like myself. That union worked very hard to protect itself and its legacy constituents, but did very little if anything to help me... besides taking a $500 "initiation fee" and a constant percentage of my paycheck every week. In some circles they call that "racketeering."
Laws are in place for a reason. Its not perfect, but then again nothing is. Unions aren't perfect either, and most of them (read: not all of them) are irrelevant nowadays. If I can agree that labor laws aren't perfect, certainly you must agree that unions aren't always the answer either.
Agreed.
I'm guessing that's it's not difficult for Apple (remember? Apple? ...the most successful tech company in the world with gobs of brand identification throughout the world) to recruit new candidates to replace former, striking, union employees.
Another thing to consider is that most Apple stores are in malls which are private property so even if they did go on strike there would be few locations where the picketers could be directly in front of the Apple store.
You seriously have no clue what you're talking about. I was an apple employee from 2006 until a few months ago and the only hardware that I ever got for free was an iPod shuffle in 2006 and a first gen iPhone back in 2007. At no time did Apple ever give employees a free iPad, hell we had to wait almost 7 months to get our standard 25% discount on the first gen iPad. At the time I left(April11th), we still had to pay full price for them like everyone else.
BTW, I left the company on good terms and I'm still good friends with all of my old managers and co-workers. So you can just drop that argument. I will say that in my almost 5 years with Apple my starting pay and raises never amounted to anything close to what they were paying new hires when I left. That is a big reason why I left. I had many years of good reviews which were followed by a 3% raise cap. There is something wrong when a part time 18 year old college student getting a full ride from mom & dad is making more than a 29 year old married man with a mortgage and family. They would constantly claim that they couldn't go above a 3% raise, but members of management would always seems to find a way to give multiple thousand dollar raises to their close friends that were salespeople. That and two of my store managers were notorious for going to casino's and having affairs with other married employees. There fellow gambling buddies were bumped to hourly rates nearly two and a half times what I made.. for the same job and half the time with the company.
It's the lack of control over upper management that pisses a lot of Apple employees off. They have the ability to give their favorites everything and if you're not there best friends too, you're screwed. There are no checks and balances within the upper retail management system.
As far as your comment goes... Work for the company for nearly half a decade and then you're allowed to talk shit about what employees complain about. Until then, you are just basing everything you say off of a pathetic love for a logo, a half dead CEO, some decent engineering, and a whole lot of marketing.
Chalk your time up to getting on the job experience. And regarding the "favoritism" charge... guess what, EVERYWHERE PEOPLE WORK IT'S THE SAME. Some people know how to make friends with their bosses better. So what? That's life.
I do want to share my own personal story about unions.
As many of the regulars here may know my career is in the medical business. When I first graduated from college my first job was in a hospital. Forgive the dated context but at that time hospitals were just beginning to deploy computers in their operating rooms which is where I worked. My position was to maintain and operate the computers and since I was the low man in seniority my shift was swing and graveyard on the weekends. Since it was a new field and there was no job description in the union for my job I was put into the nurse's union for lack of a better classification.
I saw many car accident victims in my work and I was passionate about doing the best job I could in serving the hospital, the surgeons and the patients.
A few years later the nurse's union decided to go on strike for better wages and I was required to join the picket line. I was very upset about it because I felt that if no one was there to run the computers during surgery, seriously injured victims may not receive the level of care they needed. I decided to not strike and I went to work anyway. Indeed there were several emergencies where I felt that I contributed to the success of critical treatments during that time.
After a few weeks the strike was over but because I did not honor the union picket line none of the nurses were allowed to speak to me. It eventually led me to resign and I moved into a medical field which was not unionized.
Bottom line is unions are fine but ethical and moral responsibility trumps politics and finance every time.
I can accurately say that Apple retail employees that are full time barely bring in 30k/year. For a company that is valued higher than any other tech company, its purely disgusting.
Your post if so off-base at so many different levels and in such stunning ways that all one can say is.... disgusting.
Your post if so off-base at so many different levels and in such stunning ways that all one can say is.... disgusting.
Then spend five minutes and type... Are afraid of your argument being challanged? But keep in mind your not everyone and your experience is unique, just like the op you responded to should have kept in mind.