Apple Makes Its Very First Labor Agreement With a Union

"Apple and the union representing retail workers at its store in Towson, Maryland, agreed to a tentative labor deal late Friday," reports CNN, "in the first US labor agreement not only for an Apple store but for any US workers of the tech giant." Workers at the Apple store in Towson had voted to join the International Association of Machinists union in June 2022 and have since been seeking their first contract. In May, they voted to authorize a strike without providing a deadline. The labor deal, which needs to be ratified by a vote of the 85 rank-and-file members at the store before it can take effect, is a significant milestone. Other high-profile union organizing efforts, such as those at Starbucks and Amazon, have yet to produce deals for those workers, even though workers at those companies voted to join unions well before the workers at the Apple store in Maryland.

There are not many legal requirements to force a company to reach a labor agreement with a new union once that union has been recognized by the National Labor Relations Board, the government body that oversees labor relations for most US business. But the process can take a long time, as one recent study by Bloomberg Law found the average time for reaching a first contract is 465 days, or roughly 15 months. In many cases, it can take longer. A separate 2023 academic study found 43% of new unions were still seeking their first contract two years after winning a representation election.
The union said their deal includes pay increases of 10% over the three-year life of the contract and guaranteed severance packages for laid-off workers.

Wrong title. The first agreement IN THE US

[test321]

Apple has signed agreements previously, see for example in UK https://x.com/ARWUnion/status/... [x.com]

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[angel'o'sphere]

Which part of the UK is a part of the USA?

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[test321]

There has to be a misunderstanding. I comment that the title is wrong. Title claims "a very first labor agreement". It is wrong because it's not the very first for Apple, since Apple signed one in UK last year. I cited UK as a courtesy to the readers because of the language, but there are more.

In France, there were negotiations on Sunday overpay in 2015 in Paris ( http://uscommerceparis.free.fr... [uscommerceparis.free.fr] ) and worktime negotiations in 2023 ( https://cgtappleretail.fr/2023... [cgtappleretail.fr] ; though it seems no agreement was reac

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[nospam007]

Ditto for Italy, Germany, Luxembourg ....

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[angel'o'sphere]

While you are technically correct,
  It should have been obvious to you that the phrase "in the US" was missing.
As the news in USA rarely covers stuff like this from Europe.

Union stuff works completely different in Europe anyway.

Unions

[phantomfive]

Once companies stop growing rapidly, and managers start abusing their employees, then the logical thing is to start a union. When stockholders are getting paid, it makes sense for programmers to join together and make sure they get paid, also.

One of the biggest losses for employees

[rsilvergun]

In history was when we allowed unionization by individual site instead of by employer. At the time this made sense because employees worked for big factories. But now you've literally got individual stores voting the unionize. It means that Apple can bring down an entire Nazgul worth of lawyers on a single store to prevent unionization.

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[Beyond_GoodandEvil]

But now you've literally got individual stores voting the unionize. It means that Apple can bring down an entire Nazgul worth of lawyers on a single store to prevent unionization.
Why bother, this is retail. Hardly a bastion of highly skilled labor, just close the store and open a new one with robots. Brick and Mortar is going away quickly and this will merely accelerate their downfall.

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[Dixie_Flatline]

Putting aside whether any labour is truly unskilled or not, retail is a pretty difficult job. You're on your feet the whole day and you have to be pleasant to every person that walks through the doors, whether they're nice to you or not. I imagine that working an Apple store in the USA is often extremely difficult--someone coming in with a $1500 phone that's on the fritz might feel more entitled to your time and energy than most other retail customers more broadly.

Interpersonal relations are actually labour

If they could open a store with robots they would

[rsilvergun]

There is no wage low enough and no amount of food and shelter scarce enough to cause employers to choose people over robots. Employers choose people because they have to.

Human beings cannot compete with automation nor have we ever been able to and we need to stop pretending that we can hold back the tide by accepting lower and lower and lower quality of life.

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[registrations_suck]

I'm rooting for the robots.

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[VeryFluffyBunny]

It's big gubbermint's way of telling their citizens how much they care.

classism is our main underlying problem

[2TecTom]

and meanwhile the unions are corrupt too

this will not help the poor, just the middle class

we live in a classist society

poor people are dying homeless and hungry on our streets

and it is getting worse, and it will continue to do so until this society collapses

it can't be long now, just look around at all the rot ...

In other news...

[Anonymous Coward]

Wait for the Apple announcement that the Towson, Maryland store will be closing early next year.......

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[registrations_suck]

I would absolutely love that. Close that shit down.

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[coopertempleclause]

Yes. How dare those workers join together like some kind of trade group to lobby management like some kind of lobby group for conditions more favourable to them like some kind of lobbyist!

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[registrations_suck]

I'm not opposed to anyone joining any group they like.

What I oppose is the govt requiring a business to deal with such groups.