Apple's first retail store union will get an employee vote on June 2

Workers at an Apple Store in Atlanta, Georgia will vote on whether or not to unionize on June 2, just days before Apple's WWDC.

After making public the plan to unionize in late April, The Verge has learned that the election for the site will happen on Friday, June 2. The proposed union would include 107 workers at the Cumberland Mall retail store in northwest Atlanta. About 70% of workers have signed cards of support and plan to file a petition with the National Labor Relations Board.

Organizers at the store say wages have fallen below the living wage in Atlanta. The starting pay is $20 an hour, far below the $31 needed for a single parent with one child would need to live. The union will ask for base pay to be raised to at least $28 an hour.

The workers are also asking for larger raises to offset inflation and a greater profit sharing program to match corporate employees.

Apple is fighting the efforts. It has hired the same lawfirm that Starbucks uses to discourage union formation.

The Atlanta store isn't the only brick-and-mortar Apple retail location to push for unionization. Workers at the Grand Central Apple Store are also working to form a union, and have recently published demands on their own website under the moniker Fruit Stand Workers United.

And earlier on Tuesday, the news broke that retail employees at the Towson Town Center store in Maryland have announced their intention to form a union.

Apple has taken steps to increase pay and benefits for its retail employees in an effort to retain workers in an increasingly tough labor market.

If the workers succeed, it sets the stage for a battle between organized labor and Apple. The campaign comes along a broader push for organizing among tech companies. In fact, the effort to unionize at the Atlanta store started when several workers began following the fight over the Amazon union in Alabama.

3 Comments

sdw2001 17460 comments · 23 Years

About 2 years ago

The starting pay is $20 an hour, far below the $31 needed for a single parent with one child would need to live.
I call BS. AI is just parroting pro-union talking points.
$20/hr is 40k a year with two weeks unpaid vacation. You can live on 40k in Atlanta, even with a child. $31 is 60 grand a year. That’s without any overtime or a side hustle. It’s more than teachers in well-paid districts make to start, almost anywhere in the U.S. 40 hours a week and a little side business? You could easily make another 10-20k. I’m so sick of this “living wage” crap. If these idiots want to unionize, let them. Apple is not going to sit back and suck up 50% hugger labor costs. They’ll just cut hours.

williamh 1048 comments · 13 Years

About 2 years ago

While I totally sympathize with people wanting to earn a better living, Apple apparently doesn't have trouble hiring at the wages they are offering. The article states that $20/hour is the starting wage. How long are people kept at the starting wage? Employees who aren't satisfied can go somewhere else. Perhaps they ought to pursue a career other than retail.

I do note that the In-n-Out Burger that I visited in San Francisco last year was offering more than $20/hour to start. I know SF is an expensive city but Boston isn't cheap either.

Marvin 15355 comments · 18 Years

About 2 years ago

sdw2001 said:

The starting pay is $20 an hour, far below the $31 needed for a single parent with one child would need to live.
I call BS. AI is just parroting pro-union talking points.
$20/hr is 40k a year with two weeks unpaid vacation. You can live on 40k in Atlanta, even with a child. $31 is 60 grand a year. That’s without any overtime or a side hustle. It’s more than teachers in well-paid districts make to start, almost anywhere in the U.S. 40 hours a week and a little side business? You could easily make another 10-20k. I’m so sick of this “living wage” crap. If these idiots want to unionize, let them. Apple is not going to sit back and suck up 50% hugger labor costs. They’ll just cut hours.

Apple has around 150,000 employees. If each employee made $200,000, that would cost them $30b. Their revenue was $365b last year, net income was $94b.

A 50% increase to 6-figure salaries would materially impact their net income. A $20,000 increase across 150,000 employees is $3b and it would probably only apply to half the employees.

Warren Buffett has made tens of billions from doing nothing but parking a big pile of money in Apple's driveway and it has grown significantly due to the work of these employees. Allocating $2b between tens of thousands of workers doesn't seem excessive when $50b+ goes to one shareholder.

It shouldn't take unions to make this happen, there needs to be legally enforced fair compensation that is relative to the value people create not just what the owners decide they are worth. Something like 10% of all yearly corporate profits should be distributed among employees and it can be capped at 100% of their salary. When there's a loss, employees eat the losses in the form of lower or no pay rises or job losses so they should get the reward when the company and shareholders do.

A company-wide yearly bonus structure would mean the base pay doesn't have to increase and it acts as an employee retention incentive. They can bring that to a vote with the shareholders. If there's fairness baked into the system, workers don't need a union, they only try to form unions when there isn't.