Workers
in Towson, Maryland, have earned the distinction
of becoming the first
Apple retail workers in the nation to
vote to strike over failed union negotiations
with their employer. The approximately 100 Apple
workers were also the first in the nation to
successfully form a union. They did so in 2022,
as the Coalition
of Organized Retail Employees (CORE),
joining the International Association of
Machinists and Aerospace Workers (IAM). Two-thirds of
the store’s workers voted to join the union, a
resounding success at a company that has long
staved off union activity.
Apple
could have embraced the Towson store union,
respecting the legal right of its workers to
bargain collectively for their rights. Instead,
the company chose a depressingly familiar path
of using its economic power to break labor laws
and resist the union at all costs.
Among
Apple’s earliest tactics, a bold one even by
corporate standards, was to offer all
but the Towson store workers new
educational and medical perks, saying that the
nascent union would have to negotiate for those
perks while nonunion workers would be able to
enjoy them immediately. The IAM CORE members
claimed it was a “calculated” move by Apple, timed just
ahead of a second retail union vote at a store
in Penn Square, Oklahoma, ostensibly as a
warning to those workers, and any others
considering union drives, that they could lose
out. The National Labor Relations Board, which
under President Joe Biden has tended to adhere
to its mandate by actually
protecting workers more
often than not, accused
the company of
violating the workers’ labor rights. Luckily,
the bid failed and a majority of Penn Square’s
Apple workers chose
to unionize.
Apple’s
ugly maneuver echoed that of Starbucks corporation
a year later. The coffee giant increased hourly
pay for all but its union workers. The NLRB also
ruled against Starbucks.
Both
Apple and Starbucks may have learned such
machinations from Littler
Mendelson P.C.,
the notorious union-busting firm that both
corporations have retained to counter worker
organizing. Starbucks alone has made use of the
services of 110
of the law firm’s attorneys to
aggressively resist organized labor at their
stores. A former National Labor Relations Board
attorney Matthew Bodie called the massive army
of anti-union lawyers “unprecedented.” On
its website,
Littler boasts of the work it has done to “shape
workplace practices in a direction that is
favorable to employers.”
Union
busting is lucrative, raking in more
than $400 million in revenues a
year for anti-union law firms like Littler
Mendelson and Morgan
Lewis (which
is Amazon’s go-to union buster). It’s no wonder
that a large part of their work is advising
corporate employers on how best to break laws.
Starbucks, for example, is a repeat
offender.
And so are Apple and Amazon.
The
practice of labor law violations in countering
unionization is so widespread that the Economic
Policy Institute found
in 2019 that “Employers are charged with
violating federal law in 41.5 percent of all
union election campaigns.” Given that these are
officially deemed violations that have gone
through the process of reporting and
adjudicating, the number is likely an
underestimate.
The
reason these major corporations choose
lawlessness is that often it works to their
benefit. A company like Apple may well see
millions of dollars toward union-busting lawyers
as money well spent. After all, breaking the law
costs very little, with fines
for labor law violations capped
at meager amounts. There are likely cold, hard
calculations behind the cost-benefit
analysis of
breaking labor laws versus allowing workers to
organize for what they want.
Even
though workers in two
Apple stores have
successfully unionized, Apple prevailed in Short
Hills, New Jersey where workers organized under
the Communications Workers of America (CWA)
and failed to
win a union vote. Ahead of the vote, CWA accused Apple
of illegal anti-union retaliation against one of
the Short Hills employees leading the union
drive. To Apple, such illegal behavior was
likely worth the price. While individual
employees have their livelihoods at stake, the
company has nothing to lose but a few thousand
dollars.
It’s
not just about money but also power (which
ultimately translates into more money). Workers
wanting union representation aren’t just
fighting for better pay and benefits but for
humane treatment. Corporate profiteering is
built on worker insecurity, the ability to hire
and fire at will, and offering unpredictable
shifts that best serve the company.
Indeed, shift
scheduling is
a key sticking point in IAM CORE’s negotiations
with Apple for its Towson store workers who
voted to strike.
There
are good reasons why corporations fight unions:
hundreds of studies point to the negative impact that
unions have on corporate profits. Conversely,
there is a clear
correlation between
unions and higher wages, benefits, and worker
protections. Even more encouragingly, unions
lead to better wages even
for non-union employees,
putting upward pressure on employers to compete
with unionized workers.
Many
modern corporate employers who fight unions
market themselves as having liberal
values and
being pro-worker. Apple touts
itself as
one of the biggest job creators in the U.S.,
responsible for 2 million jobs in all 50 states,
and boasts that “unlike with many companies,
both full- and part-time employees are eligible
for such benefits as health insurance, matching
retirement contributions, and an employee stock
purchase plan.”
But,
when forced to live up to their stated ideals,
such corporations transform into profit-hungry
gangsters. “Progressive-branded companies
therefore offer free, built-in leverage to
worker organizing campaigns,” wrote labor
journalist Hamilton
Nolan.
“There is nothing that will force an employer to
live up to all the stuff it said about caring
for employees faster than a demand for union
recognition.”
Some
companies choose to lean into their stated
liberal values, most notably Ben
and Jerry’s ice cream,
which refreshingly decided to embrace the newly
formed Scoopers United union instead of
unleashing union-busting law firms on its
workers.
Even
Microsoft, a major tech company that has a
history of being what the New York Times called
a “poster
child for corporate ruthlessness,”
is seemingly choosing the path of union
acceptance. The company’s vice chair and
president, Brad
Smith announced
in 2022 that Microsoft would work
collaboratively with unions.
The
Times speculated that
Microsoft’s decision to embrace unions was an
attempt to appease the pro-labor Biden
administration ahead of a corporate acquisition
of a video game company. Regardless of its
reasoning, working with organized labor instead
of against it is good
for society,
even if it’s bad for individual corporate bottom
lines.
The
good news is that in spite of union membership
rates continuing to drop
precipitously,
the percentage of people who see unions in a
favorable light has increased
to 71 percent,
and among young people a whopping 88 percent.
The number of workers petitioning to
join unions has jumped, as has strike activity.
The only thing standing in the way of converting
the union dreams of Apple workers and others
into reality is corporate willingness to break
labor laws.
This
commentary was produced by Economy
for All,
a project of the Independent Media Institute.
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BlackCommentator.com
Guest
Commentator, Sonali
Kolhatkar is
the
host
and producer of Uprising,
a popular,
daily, drive-time program on KPFK,
Pacifica
Radio in Los Angeles and co-
director
of the Afghan Women's Mission,
a US-based non-profit organization that
works
with the Revolutionary Association
of
the Women of Afghanistan (RAWA).
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