In a statement released before the results were announced, Apple spokesman Josh Lipton wrote: “We are fortunate to have amazing members of the retail team and deeply appreciate everything they bring to Apple. offer very solid compensation and benefits for full-time and part-time employees, including health care, tuition reimbursement, new parental leave, paid family leave, annual stock grants and many other benefits. ” .
Members wrote an open letter to Cook announcing his union, called the Coalition of Organized Retail Employees, or CORE, and asking him not to run an anti-union campaign. It happened unattended. The company retained the union avoidance company Littler Mendelson, the same one that used Starbucks. An almost daily parade of anti-union rhetoric followed, some in daily meetings, called “downloads,” and some in private. DiMaria says executives took people out of the store to walk and talk, sometimes as often as every hour. In late May, Apple sent one video in all of its U.S. stores with retail vice president Deirdre O’Brien. A union, he warned employees, “could limit our ability to make immediate and widespread changes to improve your experience.”
DiMaria says Apple deployed scare tactics to try to trick workers into believing that if the union wins, they could lose their profits, that welfare policy would become stricter, and that they would not be able to meet with their executives without the union. He says he seemed to be adapting his messages to individual employees, something an Atlanta store worker says also happened.
Apple took a different approach from Atlanta in scheduling group meetings to talk about the union. They were required before, according to Atlanta store workers. At Towson, they were billed as volunteers, even though they automatically appeared on employees’ schedules, and had to be actively turned off. The change in tactics follows a memorandum from National Labor Relations Board General Jennifer Abruzzo, saying that so-called captive hearing meetings were illegal. In light of this orientation, the union representing the Atlanta store introduced a change in unfair labor practices to the NLRB.
Members of the Atlanta-suspended union effort have contacted Apple employees at other stores, including Towson, to advise them on what to expect from Apple and how to fight. “When a manager says something in a public forum, it’s not enough to say it’s not true,” said Derrick Bowles, an Atlanta staff member and member of the organizing committee. Workers need to take the step beyond explaining why the statement is also illogical.
Bowles says executives tried to paint Atlanta union organizers as aggressors, often throwing out terms such as “tension” and “harassment,” which he disputed at meetings. He says other Apple employees who are campaigning should put these executives in place. “Like,” you say we could lose profits. Is this a threat? Is it something you would be willing to write? Leadership needs to be put on the defensive. If you are defensive, you will lose. “
