America’s love affair with the smartphone has helped create tens of thousands of jobs at places like Best Buy and Verizon Wireless and will this year pump billions into the economy. Within this world, the Apple Store is the undisputed king, a retail phenomenon renowned for impeccable design, deft service and spectacular revenues… But most of Apple’s employees enjoyed little of that wealth. While consumers tend to think of Apple’s headquarters in Cupertino, Calif., as the company’s heart and soul, a majority of its workers in the United States are not engineers or executives with hefty salaries and bonuses but rather hourly wage earners selling iPhones and MacBooks…
Much of the debate about American unemployment has focused on why companies have moved factories overseas, but only 8 percent of the American work force is in manufacturing, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics… And as the service sector has grown, the definition of a career has been reframed for millions of American workers.
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Any way you look at it, Apple employees are simply not getting their fare share of the company’s profits. Apple asks their employees to know and do above and beyond what most retailers ask, and the NYT just showed we can get a bigger percentage of profits selling yoga pants. Apple employees deserve better. Just 1% commission would completely transform our paychecks, and the only way the company will give us what we deserve is if Apple workers come together to demand what we deserve.
Get connected to other Apple employees who want to see change by “Liking” the Retail Action Project on Facebook (www.facebook.com/retailactionproject), calling us at 646.490.5925, or emailing us at info@retailactionproject.org.