Apple has once again been accused of breaking the law in its attempts to fight unionization by retail store employees. Staff at the Maryland store say that Apple union negotiators acted in bad faith by stalling for as long as possible, and broke the law by engaging in what’s known as “surface bargaining” and “regressive bargaining.”
The Coalition of Organized Retail Employees (CORE) says that Apple has once again violated the National Labor Relations Act (NLRA) …
Background
A unionization movement among Apple Store workers has seen the Cupertino company accused of a variety of illegal union-busting measures. These range from mandatory attendance at anti-union meetings through creating a fake union and penalizing union members to firing union activists.
The National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) has already upheld claims of two illegal Apple union-busting tactics, and two members of Congress said last month that there appears to be a recurring pattern of the Cupertino company breaking labor laws.
Apple was last month found guilty of coercively “interrogating” staff at the World Trade Center store, and a judge ordered the company to immediately end this practice. Apple is appealing against this ruling.
Apple union negotiators accused of acting illegally
Bloomberg reports.
Contract talks with its first unionized US retail store reached a flashpoint on Wednesday, with labor representatives filing a complaint in response to what they called bad faith negotiations.
CORE, which represents the Apple store in Towson, Maryland, said that the iPhone maker is stalling and hasn’t responded to key proposals sought by employees. The group filed the complaint with the National Labor Relations Board, citing a “clear pattern” of regressive bargaining.
The NLRA requires companies to negotiate with unions in good faith, something staff say was not the case at the Maryland store.
Surface Bargaining and Regressive Bargaining
Apple is accused of two specific forms of bad-faith negotiation:
- Surface Bargaining
- Regressive Bargaining
Surface Bargaining is where a company pretends to negotiate, but actually fails to do so. It typically involves putting forward new language which is intended to give the impression that improvements to conditions have been offered, when in fact the underlying terms remain exactly the same.
Regressive Bargaining is where a company puts forward one proposal, and later comes back with a worse one.
Both likely break employment law, which requires a company to negotiate in good faith.
Union reps say that Apple first stalled by demanding time to come up with counter-proposals, and then took a full 42 days … to come back with an ‘offer’ of the status quo.
After taking a long break to “give us time to think” they presented us with the only proposals they were able to prepare in the 42 days between sessions. These three proposals were different ways of presenting us with Apple’s current policies for sick time, bereavement, and unpaid leave.
These proposals were not only condescending and passive-aggressive, but they were acts of “Surface Bargaining, which is another blatant violation of the NLRA.
One potential defence for Apple on the surface bargaining front is that it is initially seeking to ‘memorialize’ the existing contract, in order to then form a basis for future negotiations. This can be a legitimate step toward negotiations, but it would usually be explicitly stated and agreed by both sides as a sensible starting point.
9to5Mac’s Take
Apple continues to take an extremely hard line against the growing unionization movement among its retail workers. It is of course fully entitled to do so – however inadvisable it may be – but the company must act within employment law. It has been found to break the NLRA on three separate occasions, and now faces this additional charge.
We continue to argue that Apple’s best interests are served by engaging positively with its retail staff, both from employee morale and PR viewpoints. Being seen to illegally intimidate and deceive your own employees really isn’t a great look.
Photo: Bangyu Wang/Unsplash
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