Deirdre O’Brien, Apple’s vice president of retail and people, has sent Apple retail stores an anti-union video, reports Bloomberg. In it, she tells employees that unionization efforts could slow workplace progress and that third party labor groups don’t share the tech giant’s environmental concerns.
From the video (per Bloomberg):”We have a relationship that is based on an open and collaborative and direct engagement, which I feel could fundamentally change if a store is represented by a union under a collective bargaining agreement,” O’Brien said. “And I worry about what it would mean to put another organization in the middle of our relationship. An organization that doesn’t have a deep understanding of Apple or our business, and most importantly, one that I do not believe shares our commitment to you.”
Earlier today we reported that a fourth group of Apple retail store workers — this time at the Oxmoore Center Mall in Louisville, Kentucky — plan to form a union. Workers at the flagship Grand Central Terminal store in New York City have been gathering signatures. The Cumberland Mall store near Atlanta became the first to file paperwork with the NLRB. And a group of Apple employees at the Towson Mall in Towson, Maryland launched a union drive earlier this month.
