Apple retail employees at the Towson, Maryland store (the unionized location) were given bargaining surveys to fill out late last week to guide the union in how they will negotiate with Apple, tweets Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman.
So far, no changes at store have been implemented due to unionization, the article notes, he notes. Retail employees are asked to choose up to three issues from a list of eight:
- Medical costs containment
- Retirement (i.e., 401(k), pension)
- Scheduling issues
- Improved paid time off (i.e., vacation, holidays, sick leave)
- Respect from employer
- Increase staffing
The list is also broken down into more detail, and members are asked to rate the importance of each issue from “Not important” to “Essential.”
- General wage increases
- Transparency on wages/pay brackets
- Premium pay for special skills (e.g., non-English-speaking employees)
- Reduce time it takes to reach maximum rate of pay
- Add cost-of-living adjustment
- Add pension plan (see attached)
- Add profit sharing
- Improve 401(k) savings plan
- Improve medical coverage
- Improve dental coverage
- Improve vision coverage
- Improve mental health coverage
- Improve pet insurance coverage
- Improve accident and sickness coverage
- Improve life insurance coverage
- Medical costs containment
- Overtime procedures
- Increase paid holidays
- More vacation time
- Improve sick leave benefits
- Improve policies/procedures for approval of paid time off
- Improve bereavement pay and/or policy/ies
- Implement seniority language (i.e., layoff, recall rights, transfers, promotions & shift prefs)
- Improve job security
- Respect shown to employees from management
- Improve communication from management to employees
- Workplace safety and/or security
- Health and welfare of employees (i.e., ergonomics, air quality at workplace)
- Increase input in work design and/or production numbers (to achieve sustainable workload)Improve management’s commitment to employee professional growth and development
- Clear guidelines for attendance policy
- Clear guidelines for promotions
- Improve scheduling and availability
- Improve work-life balance
- Implement four-day work week
- Implement one work-from-home day per pay week
- Improve “clocking-in/out” policies
- Increase staffing
- Gurman says the survey also asks how employees are willing to help when it comes to union activities.
The Cumberland Mall store near Atlanta, Georgia, became the first to file unionization paperwork with the National Labor Relations Board earlier this year. In May, a group of Apple employees at the Towson Mall in Towson, Maryland launched a union drive. A fourth group of Apple retail store workers — this time at the Oxmoore Center Mall in Louisville, Kentucky — reportedly plan to form a union. And workers at the flagship Grand Central Terminal store in New York City have been gathering signatures.
