Last Updated on March 11, 2023, 10:38 AM | Published: March 11, 2023
OKLAHOMA CITY — The OKC Apple store employee union in Penn Square mall is ready for negotiations with company representatives on May 16th and 17th.
The employees first went public as Penn Square Labor with their goals of unionizing back in September of 2022. They became the second [AAPL] store in the country to win their union election in October of 2022 with the backing of the Communication Workers of America.
The negotiations will be taking place in Oklahoma City in-person. Apple would not agree to even a hybrid event allowing some to attend virtually.
Apple [AAPL] will be represented by lawyers contracted by the corporation. No management from the OKC store is expected to be in attendance at the negotiations although corporate execs might attend.
Lawyers with the Seyfarth Shaw firm will represent Apple during the negotiations. That firm specializes in representing companies in anti-union strategies and negotiations on union contracts.
Representing Penn Square Labor is their bargaining committee. Their bargaining committee consists of employees from the store:
- Michael Forsythe [Genius Admin]
- Kirsten Civic [Technical expert]
- Darren Griffis [Business expert]
- Derrick Osabase [Vice Chair]
- Billy Moffat [Bargaining Chair]
There are a few items they have in mind for negotiations. These things, that they’ve been campaigning for since the beginning, are
- Bilingual pay
- Standard pay increases
- Protections from recession
Negotiation process
Free Press spoke with Michael Forsythe from the bargaining committee about Penn Square Labor and [AAPL].
“Apple as a whole has been aggressively encouraging the reduction of headcount through attrition”, said Forsythe. “We’re at almost half the staff we were at about a year and a half ago, and according to Quique, one of the main heads of Apple retail, retail hours will continue to drop next quarter.”
On what they look forward to bargaining for, Forsythe said, “One of the things we’ll be looking to bring is obviously protections for our workers through the recession Apple predicts is coming. Clearly they believe they should be able to protect their own interests. Allowing us to do so is in direct conflict with them doing so, so we don’t really expect them to just offer us those protections–especially with how aggressively they’ve been going after every policy violation.”
When asked about who would be representing [AAPL] in the negotiations, he said, “I believe Townson said they have people from executive relations at the table. No managers from their store though, so I don’t expect any from ours.”
Since the campaign was launched, Apple has been under significant pressure from both the workers and the public to recognize the union. This is a part of an even bigger labor movement including employees from Starbucks, Amazon, and other workers from across the country.
Alex Gatley covers labor activities in the state of Oklahoma.
