CWA/Apple Retail Bargaining Report #27 Penn Square Location, Oklahoma City, OK

The CWA/Apple Bargaining team met today with Apple in Oklahoma City. Today’s session included a Federal Mediator from FMCS who joined us to help the two sides close the gap on our differences. 

We led the day with passing our proposals again on vacations, holidays, excused days with pay and overall wages. The Company spent most of their day in their own caucus crunching numbers on what they could agree to.   

They came to the Union before lunch with a counter that was basically the same wage proposal with pay increases tied to performance based metrics which is status quo on the current process. The Union made a point that we were willing to discuss a hybrid that would be a true general wage increase for all employees with over 6 months of tenure annually and also an increase additionally for performance. 

After lunch we did pass a counter on a hybrid model that would be both a general wage increase and a performance based pay increase as we discussed. 

The Company acknowledged our proposal with positive discussion. Before the end of the session today, both the Company and Union Chairs met with the Mediator present and the Company acknowledged they were working on a counter based on what we presented. However, it would not be available by the end of today’s session. They did agree to have it ready at the beginning of our September session on 9/4/24 as we are scheduled to meet for three days 9/4 thru 9/6/24.

The CWA/Apple bargaining team would like to take a minute to thank all of the members that came out and voted in the strike authorization vote yesterday evening. It was incredibly awesome to see so many workers engaged in the bargaining process and unanimously voting to authorize the ability to call a strike if negotiations were to stall. Our hope is we will continue to make positive progress and a strike would not be necessary; however knowing the employees are unified and have our back is a true sign of solidarity and worker power in this process. 

We are planning on a Worker Rally the afternoon of September 3, 2024, so stay tuned for more information on how to participate!

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
Jose Lozano, CWA District 6 Staff Representative
Billy Moffett, CWA District 6 Assistant to the Vice-President

BM/ss
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