[nimbius]

I'm a Union diesel mechanic and I've seen this before. Its an undercut strategy used by companies who have lost a union battle but don't understand what that means, so they're told by consultants that if they just piss hard enough in the union cheerios people will see the difference and give up their membership. Sometimes they do it to undercut new membership but its been my experience unions often unintentionally make the membership bar pretty hard to begin with.

Ultimately the union bargains for benefits above and beyond what companies already give their non union employees. The tactic winds up putting some companies over the barrel during union negotiations sometimes as it means whatever we win gets extended to an already well compensated non union workforce.

Thank a union carpenter for your 40 hour work week ;)

[waboremo]

Yep, they aren't new tactics. Might be new to tech union figures, so it might be beneficial for them to take a great look at physical labor unions and the various strategies that will be deployed to potentially weaken numbers. There's decades and decades of these little tactics to learn from!

[908B64B197]

> Yep, they aren't new tactics.

It also serves the union's employees well: they'll have to go negotiate and prove to their members that they are worth the union dues they pay to get these benefits. These people have no interests in Apple just raising salaries for everyone.

> Might be new to tech union figures

Apple Stores isn't tech, it's retail.

[capableweb]

> Apple Stores isn't tech, it's retail.

Apple Stores are ultimately owned by Apple, which most would consider a "tech" company.

[colechristensen]

But also now any time Apple does anything positive for its nonunion employees it will be cast in the light of being an anti-union tactic.

I’m happy about workers fighting for rights union or not… but what gets me irritated is rhetoric that focuses on the union itself and not the workers.

In this case… The union agreed to its contract, people should stop whining about what they agreed to. You want now you have to wait until it’s time to renegotiate. You wanted a deal that only gets updated periodically when the contact is up, that’s the mechanics of what you agreed to.

[waboremo]

Well, it is an anti-union tactic. You're selecting which employees get [new positive thing] based on whether or not they're in a union. If they want to avoid such light they should only base the additions off department/team.

I do agree that they should be focusing on renegotiations, what's currently happening is they're letting a lot of reporters get away with framing the situation as a "loss" for the union.

I don't fully grasp your irritation regarding the focus on the union itself, it's supposed to be a representation of the workers as a baseline.

[refurb]

Its not anti-union, its just how contracts works.

If union negotiates X,Y,Z into their contract and a year later the company offers an upgraded Z2, the union doesn't get it because it’s not in their contract.

That’s just how labor negotiations work.

[capableweb]

Generally, companies don't have to ask unions for approval for anything that is universally beneficial for the union members, obviously no one would say no to improvements. Union contracts are there to stop changes that might be hurtful for the members, not benefits.

Have you participated in a real union somewhere before and read through the bylaws and such?

[refurb]

I have been a member of a union and I know how collective bargaining works.

An employer is never going to give a union a freebie. Just like a union would never give the employer a freebie. Why? Because the very nature of a union involves bargaining over a fixed contract for a period of time.

And every time a new contract negotiation happens the union will want X and the employer will want Y. Why would either side give the other something without getting something in return? That's just bad negotiation.

[guelo]

They haven't negotiated a contract yet. Apple, completely by coincidence I'm sure, announced these new bennefits that union workers won't get a few days before the Oklahoma store voted to unionize.

[35208654]

How do you know the union workers wont get those benefits if a contract hasn’t been signed?