[lscdlscd]

Just goes to show how effective unionizing is. Power to those workers! They're a key part in making Apple one of the most valuable companies in the world. They deserve a fair share.

[ethbr0]

Indeed.

Companies hate unions because they increase labor costs and benefits.

Does anyone really think corporate anti-union talking points are in their workers' best interest?

Unions have their faults (e.g. bureaucracy), but corporations aren't fighting them for their employees' benefit.

[aksss]

> Unions have their faults (e.g. bureaucracy)

Corruption, protecting shit employees from being fired, seniority preference over merit, politics, wage caps for individual contributors (not just wage floors), dues, inefficient administrative overhead, to name a few others.

For a lot of workers, especially knowledge workers and pro services, the value proposition doesn’t make sense.

Companies fight unions for the efficiency of the machine, which may or may not benefit employees (depends on context, right?). Employees fight unions because the value prop looks like shit in many cases - at best a bargain with the devil - circumstances need to be pretty bad to make the deal, or the union needs to have captured the right to work (at company or industry) already.

I say all this as someone with a small union pension waiting for me and as someone who managed union employees. I’ve seen the good, the bad, and the ugly with unions.

[jvmfjvfjvf]

Well, Walmart non union workers still have their jobs while the ones that did unionize all lost theirs.

[93po]

> Does anyone really think corporate anti-union talking points are in their workers' best interest?

Yes, usually at least half the workforce.

But but but the monthly dues!!!

[randomdata]

> Does anyone really think corporate anti-union talking points are in their workers' best interest?

Sure. What do the C-suite employees stand to gain from it other than a whole new set of headaches when they have to deal with the union?

[xhkkffbf]

> corporations aren't fighting them for their employees' benefit.

But they are. The long-term profitability of the company is essential for ensuring the jobs of everyone. History is filled with the bankruptcies of unionized companies where the workers asked for more than what the market would support.

I hate to rain on your parade, but in my experience the union leadership were much more like a parallel track of management. They definitely played favorites and took sides in political battles to protect some people and hurt others. Everyone dreams that the unions will be neutral protectors of the workers. That wasn't what I saw.

[pastor_bob]

Unionizing is hard. Apple blatantly roughs up organizing efforts and after months of nothing, all they get is a 'cease and desist' order.

[JimtheCoder]

"They're a key part in making Apple one of the most valuable companies in the world."

...

[0x5345414e]

Yeah I’m not sure I agree with that statement either…

[nonethewiser]

Virtually all companies oppose unionization. Am I to believe that all these companies are doing so out of sheer incompetence?

[pxc]

workers: *produce all the value*

owners: think you can negotiate? get fucked, workers!

noble bystander: hey, these workers are a key part of the value creation equation here!!

[j16sdiz]

Meanwhile in China, all union except the state-driven ones are illegal.

Deng Xiaoping took away the right to go onstrike because "the communist party is owned by the worker and represents the best interest of the workers".

[refurb]

Same thing in Singapore. Unions were a hot bed of communism and radicalism leading to protests and riots.

Now there is one union - NTUC, and it's the only legal union.

[AndyMcConachie]

China has raised more people out of poverty faster than any other civilization in history.

[pmichaud]

I don't think it shows this. I think it shows that companies expect unions to be a huge pain in the ass that they would go out of their way to avoid (even illegally), but it doesn't follow that unions are therefore effective at their stated purpose for the workers. That may or may not be the case.

[dllthomas]

Right. I happen to think it often is the case, but management resistance alone doesn't show it. In the world of anti-union PR where unionization hurts everyone but parasitic union organizers, we would also expect to see management resistance, so that can't distinguish between that world and ours.

[onion2k]

Yet think currently the top 1% is paying over 50% of all taxes.

There's a few things to consider with this statement. First, and most importantly, everyone in the US who has more than $1m is in the top 1% by wealth, including assets. That illustrates how little money most people have.

Secondly, the top 1% captured 54% of the wealth generated in the last decade, so paying 50% of the tax sounds about right.

Lastly, we're not really talking about the top 1% because most of them are just people who lucked into buying a house in an area that subsequently became gentrified, or they got lucky with some stock options, or whatever. It's people who own more than $100m who have the sort of capital that enables them to pay very fancy accountants to get their tax burden down to single digit percentages. They're also the ones who get their companies to do union-busting tactics, because next year they want to own $200m.

[ThisIsNowhere]

For the past half century, inflation adjusted wages have remained basically flat while productivity has more than doubled. The 1% heirs have captured almost all of that growth. So that is the source of this funding - the heirs expropriate the profit of surplus labor time to finance the government which oversees that expropriation.

[derelicta]

Argument makes sense if you conveniently forget it's workers in the first place who created the company's wealth.

[synetic]

Individual taxes make up around 41% of government revenues. The tax on labor is far higher than the tax on capital. As such the very wealthy pay a way lower percent of their overall “income” in taxes than the rest of us. I know of know concept of fairness where this is considered just. Even Reagan thought the tax on capital ought to be higher than the tax on labor.

[DHPersonal]

> The cry of the ignorant. What is a fair share?

In this case, I'd find out what the union was requesting and consider its fairness.

[bl4kers]

Apple's online sales (and product value) are in part due to consumers knowing they're able to walk in to any of their physical locations and receive good support.

[AlbertCory]

Translation guide: when someone says "fair share" you can just read that as "more."

[changoplatanero]

I would relate fair share to how much value the worker is bringing in compared to an average applicant who is willing to take the position for a lower salary

[Kiro]

Yes, but no need to exaggerate. My country has no Apple Stores and Apple is really popular here so I doubt they're key.

[II2II]

There was a time (the late 1990's) when Apple had relatively little access to the market outside of specialized stores and nearly zero control over how their product was presented to consumers. It wasn't so bad for maintaining the status quo since many of those stores were fiercely loyal to Apple.

I suspect that Apple looked back at what brought them to that point when they started growing again. I don't know what their thoughts regarding the specialized stores were, but I wouldn't be surprised if they blamed the larger retailers for the acceleration of their earlier downfall. Having your product first shoved to the back corner, while being shunned by salespeople who knew nothing of the product, then removed from the shelves altogether does not inspire confidence in consumers. Sure, those retailers may have been picking up Apple products when Apple turned around ... but what is to prevent a replay of the late 1990's if things cooled down again?

What I am going to suggest is that the Apple's popularity in your country is built upon Apple's popularity in other countries. While that popularity may not be the product of the Apple Store, Apple's ability to sustain that popularity likely is.

[Eumenes]

They are effective indeed, esp. as political donations go - who would've thought the carpenters union donates more to political initiatives than Oracle?

https://www.opensecrets.org/elections-overview/top-organizat...

[InitialLastName]

This doesn't seem shocking to me?

Per [0] Oracle has ~100,000 employees and $6B in income. Per [1] the United Brotherhood of Carpenters has ~500,000 members; per [2] (yes, I'm aware this doesn't cover all of the occupations represented by the union, and some members will not be in the US) they have a mean income of ~$60,000, meaning the total income represented by the union could be ~$30B. That the union barely edges Oracle for political spending suggest that they punching well below their weight, relative to income.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oracle_Corporation [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Brotherhood_of_Carpente... [2] https://www.bls.gov/oes/current/oes472031.htm

[lokar]

That ignores individual donors. I assure you that execs and investors in oracle make up the difference.

[hospitalJail]

My MBA mostly pointed them to having the best marketing campaigns.

I never once read or had a discussion about the quality of the employees.

I suppose employees are the people making the marketing plans, but these aren't the people unionizing.

[foxyv]

A huge part of the Apple marketing are their retail locations and "Geniuses." A great deal of the reason I bought my first Apple product was because of an employee in an Apple Store.

[spacemadness]

Sounds like solid MBA logic to me. May as well lay some more people off.