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Apple hired an employment law firm, Littler Mendelson, to curb labor pressure. It also provided store managers with talking points, including that unionizing could result in fewer promotions and inflexible working hours. assistant. And last week, its leaders urged workers not to unionize and said they would raise wages from $20 to $22.
“I’m worried about what it would mean to put another organization, Apple, or an organization that doesn’t have a deep understanding of our business, at the center of our relationship,” said Deirdre O’Brien, Apple’s senior vice president of retail. video sent to most of the company’s approximately 65,000 retail employees. The video was previously reported on: Boundary.
Apple spokesperson Josh Rosenstock declined a request to meet with Ms. O’Brien and Alex Burrus, manager of the Cumberland Mall, about 10 miles from downtown Atlanta. And employees who were on the fence or opposed to union repression were reluctant to speak to The New York Times.
Mr Rosenstock said in a statement that the company provides numerous benefits to retail employees, including health care, education reimbursement and family leave. “We deeply value everything they bring to Apple,” he said.
Apple has resisted union pressure, even as online orders reduce the importance of its stores. According to Loup Ventures, a firm specializing in technology research, about 6 percent of Apple’s sales come from retail outlets, which is roughly half its pre-pandemic share.
Despite the stores’ dwindling financial importance, employees like Ms. Rhodes see them as Apple’s physical link to the wider world. He started working at Apple because he loved their products. She bought her first iPhone at the age of 16 with the money she earned working at McDonald’s. She became obsessed with the company and arranged hours of product events to nurture the growing interest in “the way it works,” she said.
In 2018, she impressed a store technician with her knowledge of the Apple Watch and led a manager to encourage her to apply for a job in her hometown of Louisville, Ky. He later moved to Atlanta and transferred to the Cumberland Mall store. a Bath & Body Works and a Pandora jewellery.
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