A serious accusation has been made on the first apple syndicate from the Towson, Maryland store, who maintained that they received threats from the company even related to their immigration assistance.
The workers have created a petitionasking Apple’s board of directors to ensure staff at other stores aren’t subject to the same tactics.
We knew that Apple had strong human rights policies, especially around the rights of workers to organize. […]
Unfortunately for us, these policies were not followed. What we received in exchange for reaching out to our CEO was nothing less than a systematic and coordinated campaign designed to inflict substantial collective pressure on us as a workforce. To be clear, this was nothing short of traumatic for many of us. We are still dealing with the emotional effects of this campaign led by Littler Mendelson.
Today, we’re reaching out to you, our Apple Board of Directors, in the hope that you can take steps to ensure that no other Apple employee needlessly goes through what we did. […]
The right to union representation is guaranteed by the United States government; it is a right that Apple recognizes in its Human Rights Policy and requires its suppliers to respect in its Code of Conduct for Suppliers. Do not punish us for exercising these rights. These anti-union campaigns have real-world consequences on the health of your employees.
The reference to Littler Mendelson is a law firm specializing in trade union repression, and which Apple asked to help its efforts to discourage staff from unionizing. This was the same company contracted by Starbucks.
wired spoke to some of the employees involved, who painted a picture of Apple using chilling tactics:
“When you hire Littler Mendelson, it’s an indication that you’re prepared to do whatever it takes to defeat the union campaign,” says Logan. “That you are prepared to play hard” […]
Managers stressed how grateful employees should be for the pay and benefits they receive from Apple, and suggested they could lose them if the union won. She says the scaremongering became white; one employee was told his immigration assistance could be taken away if the union won.
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