Workers at NYC Grand Central Apple Store start moving to unionize

Apple employees working at the New York City Grand Central Apple Store are working to form a union, with workers taking steps that could result in it being the first Apple retail outlet to unionize.

Unrest among some Apple Store employees in the United States over stagnating wages surfaced in February, with a number of stores preparing to file paperwork to create a union. In the case of one New York City outlet, it seems that the activity has progressed considerably.

The organizers of "Fruit Stand Workers United" has started to collect signatures at the flagship Grand Central Apple Store, the Washington Post reports. After a vote on February 21 to affiliate with Workers United, the organizers are now handing out signature cards to potential union members.

Workers United previously assisted another major unionizing effort concerning a multinational in supporting efforts by Starbucks employees across the United States.

The store has the potential to become the first Apple Store location to unionize, if enough votes are gathered to create the union, but it's not the only one aiming to do so. Anonymous employees told the report that at least three other locations are working on making their own unions.

An update to a website run by the organizers states "Grand Central is an extraordinary store with unique working conditions that make a union necessary to ensure our team has the best possible standards of living in what have proven to be extraordinary times with the ongoing covid-19 pandemic and once-in-a-generation consumer price inflation."

Apple declined to comment to the report about whether it supports or intends to combat he union, but said in a statement it was "fortunate to have incredible retail team members and we deeply value everything they bring to Apple. We are pleased to offer very strong compensation and benefits for full time and part time employees, including health care, tuition reimbursement, new parental leave, paid family leave, annual stock grants and many other benefits."

27 Comments

crowley 10431 comments · 15 Years

About 2 years ago

Once one goes there will likely be a domino effect. Good times.

pjorlando 30 comments · 10 Years

Unions are a joke. I was part of a union for 6 years and they did sh*t for the workers other than collect dues. Good luck to ya!

hammeroftruth 1354 comments · 16 Years

crowley said:

Once one goes there will likely be a domino effect. Good times.

It’s probably going to depend on if they can get anywhere in NY. Even in CA which is heavily unionized, it hasn’t gotten much traction in almost a decade.
I’m not sure how unionizing will help employees, since there aren’t any reports on what the union will do. It might just be a threat to get Apple to pay more to its retail employees.

tommikele 599 comments · 12 Years

crowley said:

Once one goes there will likely be a domino effect. Good times.

Exactly what "good times" are you expecting?

Madbum 536 comments · 2 Years

pjorlando said:

Unions are a joke. I was part of a union for 6 years and they did sh*t for the workers other than collect dues. Good luck to ya!

It’s more than a joke, it’s detrimental to a persons career and advancement. Let’s hope Apple employees are smarter than this. But often times the “organizers” are no better than the mob and use fake votes and peer pressure to get their way.

You are wrong when you said they did shit for you, trust me, they did plenty , such as piss off management on your behalf, say you stand for things you don’t stand for, it’s generally a giant shit show!

people Must remember, once you let these people get their way, you no longer belong to yourself , you belong to the union and essentially your career at Apple is over.

Apple of course will be diplomatic on the surface but rest assured, once you are in a union, you are essentially an enemy of the company and you will be replaced first chance they get.

Let’s also not forget, this is Apple, some dinky Apple store union, even all of them unionize, will not have enough resources to fight Apple on anything, so people are just paying their dues to the organizers for them to do whatever, buy a car ?

lastly, unions will kill individual advancement , think about the lazy idiot at work who is always trying to get by by doing the least, well, once you are in same union with that guy, you guys are now the same person. Congrats!

final word, most Apple
stores have younger employees and people passing through to another career, I honestly don’t think there will be much interest in a union! Also if you are young and working at Apple store part time and eventually want to get a letter of recommendation from managment,

Don’t join a union!!!