It's illegal to close a store just because you're afraid of unions. It's one thing for a Starbucks to close a store because they're opening and closing stores all the time and have thinner profit margins and thus have cover, but for Apple it's another deal.
That seems a somewhat pretzel-like contortion to enforce. If Apple says they don't want to run the store, how are they to be forced to run it? Especially if someone a bit Machiavellian gets involved; it can't possibly be hard for management to create reasons for a business to close. It is a delicate enough operation keeping one open; feigned incompetence at any level could easily result in a good reason to shut a store down.
What leverage are the union employees supposed to bring to bear, strike until the store opens? Or if suing business into existence turns out to be a workable strategy then we've maybe been running society wrong for a long time now.
Unless there is a paper trail like email from an exec saying something like "we need to close this store as an example because they unionize", then there is no way to prove wrongdoing.
This is a company with hundreds of thousands of people. I work in several ones. It is very hard to do this kind of things. If you do, there will be paper trail because you would need to get consensus from others.
If store is unprofitable, then they would just use that reason.
If the store is unionised and profitable, why would apple even close it?
> Unless there is a paper trail like email from an exec saying something like "we need to close this store as an example because they unionize", then there is no way to prove wrongdoing.
In my area, it didn't take a paper trail for Starbucks to get a smack. Several stores in the area were unionizing or considering unionizing.
So Starbucks removed the cushioned anti-fatigue floor mats from a bunch of stores, declaring them a trip/fall hazard.
Employees talked to each other and discovered that they'd only been removed from a few stores, not all. You can guess which.
Employees told the NLRB who asked Starbucks to explain why the mats weren't a trip hazard in non-unionizing stores.
The mats returned quickly.
Was their bright idea here really:
- remove conviniene for employees
- employees get more tired
- sales decline
- store justifies shut down
Seems like quite the stretch, just to not want to bargain with labor. I 100% believe it, but it's just sad. This all happened because businesses are stingy with paying employees properly.
I expect that one was probably a District Manager hoping to score points, rather than an executive edict.
> It is very hard to do this kind of things. If you do, there will be paper trail because you would need to get consensus from others.
Hard but doable. A few companies got burnt with direct messages between executives showing up in court in discovery, but everyone watched and learned to quickly scrub and remove those routinely. So next time it’s easier. And of course we only find out those that slip up and get caught.
But even that is not needed, all it really takes is the subordinates to read between the lines. It takes just one minion to suggest closing that particular store for “unrelated reasons” and they are promoted quickly. Everyone else learns exactly what the idea is without leaving a single paper trail.
Isn't Apple running that store for a reason? Maybe to sell something, I would imagine. They should be opposed to closing it for that reason.
Of course, that's assuming the main activity of a business is to make and sell things. Could be a wrong assumption.
But they run many others too not just that particular one store. Even closing and reopening a few stores in the region just to teach others “a lesson” could make “business sense”. They just have to find unrelated business reasons for to put on paper.
It is a wrong assumption. The only activity of a business is to turn a profit.
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They can just spin up a new instance and destroy the old one. Legality aside…
Everyone has ‘cover’. It’s just the P&L sheet.
If they’re losing money on that store, they’ll close it. If not, they’ll keep it open. But it’s not mandated to keep a money losing store opened. No one’s going to go into court and argue, “no fair! They closed my money losing location!”
And there you have the real reason Apple doesn’t care about a union here. The performance of this location can be ascertained in a fashion that is authoritative, objective, and unassailable. If they ever lose money, they’ll close, union or no union. So it doesn’t make a difference to Apple.
Paper…
I am a Senior Manager and saw a thing or two.
What I dislike about your statement is the confrontational usage. If we don’t fundamentally agree on collaboration, we run into fights over power.
A business owner sets the direction and the goals. A union is a commitment and should go beyond defensive rights. Both should work together on different interests sometimes but shall fundamentally agree: without a successful business there won’t be any employees, not the other way around.
> without a successful business there won’t be any employees, not the other way around.
And without employees there would not be any business. At the end of the day they put the work as well.
It’s in Apple’s interest to keep these employees happy because they are the face of the company. Their customers interact with them when they buy something and when something goes wrong.
I agree that the relationship should be more constructive than confrontational, but it goes both ways. Apple is both a wonderful and difficult company to work for.
> And without employees there would not be any business. At the end of the day they put the work as well.
Successful businesses always attracts employees, that has never been an issue. So the scarcity here comes from the business side and not the employee side.
The other way around would be that employees starts a successful business if there is none around, but that isn't the case. Good setups that enables good jobs are hard to create, you see what happens when those leave in the Midwest after the car industry left.
In the end it is up to each area to ensure their workers are competitive on a global stage, either price wise or skill wise or some other advantage. Otherwise there wont be anyone who wants to pay them.
Having someone around to do the actual work is absolutely a prerequisite to a successful business. Too much time in management might blunt that understanding but I assure you it's true.
But unskilled union labor dictates that it has to be them or those whom they approve of "around to do the actual work" ("actual" is doing a lot of heavy lifting here) or else the business that they don't own can't be a business at all.
It can't be anyone else, even when it could easily be.
Businesses that employ unskilled labor aren't the equal partnership that you want to make them out to be.
See the fact that the trend is toward international outsourcing. Unionization will increase that trend, even if the cashier that the public sees is now making $20/hr (now at half-time hours and much of her family has now had to move out of the area to find work, due to a downward trend in job availability: aggravating the gentrification or the depopulation trend, depending on the area).
I think that Unions are economically and socially useful, but not in the case of what is essentially unskilled labor.
As beyond the rational nonsense of such a proposition, the existence of non-unionized unskilled labor plays an important economic and social role. For one, these jobs maximize job availability to a lower class that is growing for reasons other than job availability and average salary trends. The alternative being unemployment.
And unskilled unions should especially be discouraged when other wage control issues are both not addressed and frankly aggravated by the generally pro union side.
In summary, unskilled labor wages should be buoyed by measures other than unions: reasonable minimum wage law, labor supply control at the population level, etc. As unskilled Unions otherwise distort the economy and social sphere too much. Last, one can't rationally justify the existence of such Unions on profit margin. If they are justified for one, then they are justified for all. And vice versa.
I think this boogey man "ooooo outsourcing!" argument against anything good for workers is so tired.
Look, even un-unionized laborers in America get paid significantly more than, say, China or Bangladesh. And they're also adults, by law. The reality is the jobs that can be outsourced safely already have, a long time ago. When was the last time you saw an article of clothing made in the US? Or a plastic product made here? Or anything really, besides an automobile?
But not all jobs can be outsourced. You can't outsource retail or food service.
All labor is skilled labor. Sometimes the required skill is dealing with unpleasant members of the public who believe them to be lessers, all while keeping a smile on their face.
This "all labor is skilled labor" mantra is a deeply unhelpful misunderstanding of the difference between skilled and unskilled labor
Unskilled labor is something people can be trained to do in a very short period of time, and where it doesn't require any kind of specialized training or certification
Yes, we still should respect people doing unskilled labor, but pretending that there's no such thing doesn't help anyone. All it does is generate a scoff at the idea that stocking shelves or operating a point of sale is "skilled"
I’m aware of and understand the difference. I’m not suggesting that the amount of training to run a cash register is equivalent to, say, wire a house, or calibrate lab equipment.
I just find it distasteful when people are outright rude or dismissive to “unskilled labor.”
> without a successful business there won’t be any employees, not the other way around.
How do you get that successful business? Employees like Product Managers trying to analyze product market fit, leadership setting direction, etc.
This happens a lot in small business - the owner/founder thinks they and they alone have the magic sauce, and it quickly becomes "you should be grateful to have this opportunity to work on my ideas".
>Both should work together on different interests sometimes but shall fundamentally agree: without a successful business there won’t be any employees, not the other way around.
And that social contract was broken some 6-10 years ago at this point. Businesses can be successful, record breaking profits successful. But still refuse a raise or even lay you off to save a penny.
So the increased opposition is inevitable. You can't just lie saying "times are tough", cut hours and and pretend unemployment is at an all time low, and not expect your labor to resent the business.
Especially not with the news being wall-to-wall with headlines about many of these employers making record profits
In Europa this is called the "social partnership".