Workers at one of only two Apple Stores in the country unionize in the midst of contract negotiations. One of the many ideas on the table: Introducing the option to tip in customer transactions.
Employees at the Apple Store in Towson Town Center shopping center, North Baltimore, Maryland, have successfully united with the International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers Back in January. They were the first Apple retail employees to do so — despite the company Union breach efforts elsewhere. Right now, those are ~100 employees Talks are taking place With the tech giant to try and create new workplace protections and benefits for themselves.
So far, Apple has tentatively agreed to improve the process for fixing defective paychecks, update its non-discrimination policy, create a new health and safety committee, and commit to rehiring employees laid off from other store locations. However, the responsibility does not stop there.
In the workers’ most recent contract, they required several changes to be made. Employees are asking for pay increases of up to 10%, more paid time off including Black Friday, higher pay for overtime, two weeks of severance per year, extended death leave, and more paid time off dependent on the number of years the employee has worked in the store, and other policy modifications in accordance with D Tweet topic from union and Wed report From bloomberg.
In addition, the workers suggested introducing a tipping system to the store. Specifically, they’re looking to add an option for customers to tip 3%, 5%, or a custom amount when they check out with credit card transactions. Syndicate account on Twitter acknowledge The proposal is likely to be “a little controversial”. However, the Coalition of Organized Retail Employees (CORE) — as the union is called — reports that customers regularly attempt to actually tip, without any recourse to doing so.
CORE’s Books job. “While we don’t see tips as a major way to generate income, we wanted to create an acceptable system that would allow the occasional customer the ability to reward our team for their hard work.”
Furthermore, CORE described potential tips as a way of “profit sharing”, and suggested that all tips be pooled and divided among workers according to hours worked. “We understand that there are many concerns about the tipping culture as a whole in the United States, but there is currently no other mechanism in place that would allow customers to directly thank or contribute to a team that has provided them with exceptional service,” the union wrote.
In general, tipping is uncommon in retail stores in the United States. Even so, it’s standard in restaurants, coffee shops, salons, and countless other customer service situations. Apple workers walk the line between service and retail. Genius Bar staff provides extensive customer assistance and guidance through one-on-one appointments. Under Apple’s system, the The interaction between workers and customers goes far beyond a single minute of registering in the register. this, no necessarily mean Tipping is the best solution for employees, but it’s easy to see where the idea came from.
“We understand that these are negotiations, and these are preliminary proposals,” the union said in a statement to Bloomberg. “Our goal was, and still is, to bring back an acceptable contract of membership for ratification.” Or to put it another way: CORE probably knows it won’t get everything its members ask for. in early time The stages of any negotiation are aimed at achieving high concessions – concessions and compromises come later.