CWA/Apple Retail Bargaining Report #21 Penn Square Location, Oklahoma City, OK

Union Family, 

CWA/Apple Bargaining team met today in day one of our one and a half day session for April. This session was significant in the fact the Union prepared and passed proposals that are economic in nature and important to our members. 

The morning began with our chair passing several proposals which included the following:

Basis of Compensation - this proposal placed every title into four wage tables based on what Apple is currently paying, giving every employee a clear path to top pay by getting pay increases every six months of tenure with the Company until you reached top pay at 48 months (four years). This would ensure every employee was treated fairly and always knew what they would be making. It also would add language that paid 10% extra during weekend shifts, 10% extra for multilingual employees, and protected overtime at time and half after 8 hours in a day or 40 hours in the week. 

Absences - this proposal would change sick time to a fixed amount each year, protected LOA’s, and strengthened funeral time to explain some pieces of it.   

Vacation - this proposal would allow fixed vacation time each year based on tenure.

Holidays - this proposal would add many holidays that the Company does not currently recognize as well as give flexibility to schedule other days that may be important to you as floating holidays. 

Excused Days with Pay - this proposal would give four paid excused days that could be broken into one hour increments.

Exchange Time - this proposal would give more flexibility if you had a situation you couldn’t control in which you were late to work or had to leave early by allowing you to make the time up somewhere else during the work week and not be a chargeable occurrence. 

RSU’s - passed proposal to protect what you get now for restricted stock units on an annual basis.

General Wage Increase - passed proposal for significant wage increases to everyone annually over the course of the contract no matter where you are at on the wage table.

The Company then asked the caucus to run the cost analysis (their words) at around 10:45 am. The Union understood, however the Company made us wait until after 4pm before they were ready to reconvene. 

Once we reconvened, we were told there is no interest in going into guaranteed wage tables. The Company believes their pay is well above the living wage of $19.44 and also even referenced the minimum wage rate of $7.25 in Oklahoma. They went further to tell us they don’t believe wage increases should be automatic and goes against their current policy of giving pay increases based on performance. Remember, they spent over 5 hours to come up with this response! 

We ended the session for the day as tempers were high based on this nonsense. We are preparing a response tomorrow as well as a significant request for info as they quoted what a single, no dependents employee would need to earn to be classified a living wage. We are aware at least a third of the store has dependents. 

In closing, we hope to have a better report tomorrow; however it looks like the Company is ready to draw a line in the sand when we ask that you be paid fairly and based on your tenure with this Company. 

Our next session is for half a day tomorrow (all they claimed to be available for). We will report after tomorrow's session. 

In Unity and Solidarity,

CWA/Apple Bargaining Team
Kirsten Matson, Technical Expert
Kevin Romo Velasco, Specialist
Darren Griffis, Business Expert
Michael Forsythe, Genius Admin
Jay Albertson, President Emeritus CWA 6016
Billy Moffett, CWA District 6 Assistant to the Vice-President

BM/ss
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