William Antonelli, tech reporter at Insider, joins Cheddar News to discuss Apple store employees' union efforts at the Grand Central location in New York City.

Between Bells

New York City Apple Employees Look to Form Union

Welcome back to between bells, Apple store employees at New york city's Grand Central Terminal location. They're beginning to collect signatures to form a union and it may not be the only store looking to do so a report from the Washington post says at least three more apple stores maybe looking to unionize as we just failed to match up with rising inflation. It comes nearly two months after organizers voted to affiliate with workers United, which is the same group representing unionization efforts at Starbucks stores throughout the country. These apple employees following similar moves by Etsy sellers who may be looking to form their own union after thousands recently went on strike to protest the websites recent transaction fare hike of 30% and joining us now to discuss more is William antonelli tech reporter at Insider. Thank you so much for joining us. We know organizers at the Grand Central Terminal store in New york city are demanding they want to be paid at least $30 an hour. How has Apple responded to this? Apple's response has been sort of a non response. They've given a very general, we value all of our employees. We want to make sure they're heard. But you have to realize that even for the most, most ardent anti union companies, that is usually the first response, they usually do always say, oh, you know, we value our employees, we want to make sure that they're doing the best because oftentimes they'll first line of anti union defenses. Well, look at how well we treat you right now, we can't possibly get any better. Why are you so ungrateful as sort of the unspoken term. But I think that a lot more people and a lot more workers, especially retail workers, are starting to learn to see past that and realize the benefits of a union extend past what the company has already offered. Yeah, and William we know wages. One of those sticking points for these workers at Apple. Can you detail what else they're asking for those that are seeking out a union? Sure. One of the big things that the Grand Store Grand Central Store workers mentioned in their statement is all the work that they've done throughout the entire pandemic. The pandemic, which is still ongoing. And something that I think a lot of companies and a lot of managers fail to realize is that retail workers have been treated terribly throughout the pandemic, not only in terms of having to interact with customers out in the public all day, but in terms of long hours, in terms of not necessarily being able to get sick pay. And while apples, Apple's retail workers are generally paid better than some other workers, you also have to realize that when it comes to unionization salary is just a small part of the equation, if they're being offered benefits that they love, Apple could take those benefits away tomorrow without having to explain anything. And having a union contract is a great way to make sure that a they can keep those benefits and be they can keep those benefits or benefits for all the people that come after them even after they leave, both of which I think are noble goals. Yeah. Such a good point. Especially because we know Apple does offer those benefits to full and part time employees benefits like tuition repayment and paid family leave. Um but I do want to switch gears here and ask you, how likely do you think it is that this segment of Apple employees is successful in their fight? Well, it's certainly more likely than individual store can unionize as opposed to the entirety of apple at once. And honestly, I think this is a good way to go about it. I think that individual stores unionizing and then later if a majority or a mass amount of stories unionized, they can link up and we're seeing a lot and lot of thirst from also union guilds to help tech workers organized. We c code the campaign for digital employees have been helping companies like google companies like Activision blizzard over are almost at 700 employees from the new york times tech division just became the largest union in new york news guild history. So there is a lot and lot of hunger from tech workers to get in on the unionization game. And if they can keep up that motivation, there's not a lot that can stop them. Yeah, we've been talking about this a lot here at cheddar news and this follows kind of the pattern from the Starbucks location that was able to unionize. We know the same kind of sentiment has been seen within amazon and the pattern that you see is that these companies all performed really well during the pandemic and in many cases have had record breaking revenue. Um So what do you think this means as far as the impact on Apple? If this does succeed moving forward unionization at this location, Apple could afford to unionize every single one of their employees in every single retail location and it would not make a dent in their profits. I was on cheddar in january talking about Apple has just hit the $3 trillion market cap by market cap. They are by far the most valuable company in the world. So even if they were to pay employees $50 an hour, they would be able to afford it. And then some and as it comes, if they were to unionize, if this shop unionize is, how, what sort of non economic effect would it have an apple? I honestly think you would make Apple a more promising place to work out. I think it would help attract new employees. Really good to have your perspective, like 30 seconds left here, do you expect this organized labor movement to continue throughout the post pandemic years. Hopefully we're on our way out of it. Absolutely. It's hard to organize a union in a pandemic. So the fact that so many people have been doing it now is it's just a testament to how much we need unions, and it's a testament to how fed up people are with the current status quo. So I definitely see this continuing after the pandemic William antonelli tech reporter at Insider. Thank you so much for joining us.