CWA/Apple Retail Bargaining Report #17 Penn Square Location, Oklahoma City, OK

CWA/Apple Bargaining team met today for day one of our two day session for February. 

We went into today’s session knowing we had a lot of proposals sitting on the Company’s side of the table that we needed answers to. 

The Company started with an amended proposal for probationary employees, in which they wanted to classify employees and new hires with no rights until they worked 1,040 hours. The worst part was they were requiring part timers to hit the same hours worked threshold, which would have taken 12 months for part timers getting 20 hours per week! This would have made these employees at will until they reached the hours worked threshold and the Company could have terminated them for anything at any time!

The good news is we were able to counter and T/A a proposal that will give all Union rights in the contract from day 1, except arbitration. What this means is they will have to work for 12 months before any grievances could go to arbitration. This is pretty standard language in most Union contracts. This was a huge win as the Company was pushing probationary employees from day 1 and it’s now dead on the table. 

We also TA’d language that if Apple creates a new job title, the Union will be able to bargain over what the new title's wages will be within thirty days of creation and it's retroactive on what we finally agree to. This is another huge win as we know Apple loves creating new job titles!

We are super close on Severance Pay; what this would mean is if the store closed for whatever reason, you will be entitled to some extra compensation. There will likely be more to come on this one tomorrow as we continue to push for every dollar we can get!

We also countered their management rights proposal by taking out as much of what we considered bad stuff as possible. We may end up getting this one done tomorrow as well. This was a package deal that includes dues Union deduction and recognition so we would get all three if we T/A.

The Company did present a counter to discipline and discharge as well, and we are working on a Union counter for tomorrow.

As you can see, we were very busy on day 1 of 2 for February. We are positive going into tomorrow we can move even closer to discussing financially impacting proposals that would include Vacation, Paid Holidays, Pay Differentials, and Wages. 

We are scheduled to meet again tomorrow, and will follow up with an additional report tomorrow evening.

Keep Mobilizing while we continue to fight for you!

In Unity and Solidarity,

CWA/Apple Bargaining Team

Kirsten Matson, Technical Expert
Kevin Herrera, Specialist
Darren Griffis, Business Expert
Michael Forsythe, Genius Admin
Jay Albertson, President CWA 6016
Billy Moffett, CWA District 6 Assistant to the Vice-President

BM/ss
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