Apple

How US Big Tech Monopolies Colonized The World: Welcome To Neo-Feudalism

August 19, 2024 Ben Norton, Geopolitical Economy. Resistance Report Amazon, Apple, Big Tech, Capitalism, China, Facebook, Feudalism, Google, Instagram, Microsoft, Silicon Valley, Social Media, Socialism, Yanis Varoufakis, YouTube

US Big Tech corporations have essentially colonized the world. In almost every country on Earth, the digital infrastructure upon which the modern economy was built is owned and controlled by a small handful of monopolies, based largely in Silicon Valley. This system is looking more and more like neo-feudalism. Just as the feudal lords of medieval Europe owned all of the land and turned almost everyone else into serfs, who broke their backs producing food for their masters, the US Big Tech monopolies of the 21st century act as corporate feudal lords, controlling all of the digital land upon which the digital economy is based.

First US Unionized Apple Retail Store Workers Reach Historic Tentative Agreement With Tech Giant

July 29, 2024 IAMAW. Organize! Apple, Maryland, Unions, Worker Rights and Jobs

Towson, MD – The International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers’ (IAM) Coalition of Organized Retail Employees (IAM CORE) has reached a tentative agreement with Apple that improves work-life balance, raises pay and helps protect job security. Workers at the Towson, Md., Apple retail store, the first in the country to unionize, will vote on the tentative agreement on Aug. 6. “From the beginning, IAM CORE’s mission has been to improve Apple for our employees, customers and communities,” said the IAM CORE Negotiating Committee. “By reaching a tentative agreement with Apple, we are giving our members a voice in their futures and a strong first step toward further gains.

Apple Under Pressure For Funding ‘Israeli Settlements And Military’

June 15, 2024 James Wright, The Canary. Resist! Apple, Employee Activism, Genocide, Israel, Palestine

Former and current employees of Apple, along with shareholders, have signed a letter demanding the multiple trillion pound company stop funding both Israel’s military and illegal Israeli settlement expansion in Palestine. Through a platform called Benevity, Apple matches employee donations to organisations listed as charitable. The thing is, that includes organisations such as Friends of the IDF. This so-called charity states on its website that it is the “sole organisation authorised to collect charitable donations on behalf of the soldiers of the Israel Defense Forces across the United States of America”. Apple’s donations come despite the International Court of Justice (ICJ) finding it “plausible” that Israel is committing genocide against Palestinian people in Gaza. Israel has since ignored orders from the ICJ to protect Palestinian civilians from genocide.

Workers At A Maryland Apple Store Authorize Strike

May 13, 2024 Anthony Ha, TechCrunch. Organize! Apple, Maryland, Strikes, Unions, Worker Rights and Jobs

It’s been a busy weekend for union organizing efforts at U.S. Apple stores, with the union at one store voting to authorize a strike, while workers at another store voted against forming a union. Back in 2022, workers in Towson, Maryland, became the first formally recognized union at an Apple retail store. That union, which is part of the International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers, voted Saturday to authorize a strike. The date of this potential strike has yet to be determined. “This vote today is the first step in demonstrating our solidarity and sends a clear message to Apple,” said the IAM CORE Negotiating Committee in a statement.

Apple Retail Workers Vote To Unionize A Store In Maryland

June 19, 2022 Mitchell Clark, The Verge. Organize! Apple, Maryland, Unions, Victory, Worker Rights and Jobs

Workers at Apple’s Towson Town Center store in Maryland have voted to unionize, with 65 yeses and 33 nos. Around 110 employees were eligible to vote in the election. The store is the first Apple retail location in the US to hold a union election, after organizers in Atlanta withdrew their petition to hold a union vote, which had been scheduled to take place in early May. Organizing at the Towson store has been done by a group of employees that called themselves AppleCORE (an acronym for Coalition of Organized Retail Employees). The workers have said they want to expand their rights, specifically asking for a say when it came to pay, hours, and safety. AppleCORE is associated with a larger, established union, the International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers.

Apple Retail Workers Attempt To Organize Company’s First US Union

May 17, 2022 More Perfect Union. Organize! Apple, Maryland, union busting, Unions, Worker Rights and Jobs

Towson, Maryland - Apple Store workers in Maryland are attempting to form the company’s first U.S. union. They join two other stores, one in Atlanta and one in NYC, in their efforts to unionize. We spoke to the Apple retail workers leading the drive to unionize the Towson Mall store. Below is a full transcript of the video: Kevin Gallagher: We talk about this country as like a place where democracy thrives, but we work 80% of our lives in an environment where we have no democracy. We have no vote in the things that affect us. Christie Pridgen: Apple has all the power, influence, and money to be able to make a significant change in what labor is. It’s an opportunity, like, they didn’t start it, they didn’t begin this initiative—we did. All they have to do is follow up.

Apple Retail Workers At The Grand Central Store Are Trying To Unionize

April 21, 2022 Amanda Silberling, Portside. Organize! Apple, Big Tech, New York City (NYC), Unions, Worker Rights and Jobs

New York City, New York - From Activision to Amazon, historic union elections are changing the way that Americans think about work. Now, Apple is the next tech giant to reckon with an employee-driven labor movement. Calling themselves the Fruit Stand Workers United (FSWU), employees at Apple’s Grand Central Terminal retail location launched a website designed to educate their fellow workers about why they want to unionize their store. “Year over year, the cost of living in New York City has not kept pace with our wages,” the FSWU’s mission statement reads. “Meanwhile, Apple has grown to be the most valuable company in the world. Why should its retail workers live precariously?” The collective will be affiliated with Workers United, the same group that has helped over 20 Starbucks locations form unions since December.

On Contact: Dying For An iPhone

June 15, 2021 Chris Hedges, RT. Resistance Report Apple, China, Class Struggle, Worker Rights and Jobs

On the show this week, Chris Hedges talks to Professor Jenny Chan about the people in China who make iPhones, iPads and Kindles, driving the huge profits of two of the world’s most powerful companies – Foxconn, the world’s largest provider of electronics manufacturing services, and Apple with its $2 trillion market value. Jenny Chan, along with Mark Selden and Pun Ngai, did extensive field research for almost a decade to produce their book, ‘Dying for an iPhone: Apple, Foxconn, and The Lives of China’s Workers’. What they show is that workers in China earn a fraction of what unionized workers in the United States earn. They have no job protection, are forced to work punishing hours of overtime, as much as 130 hours of overtime a month, live under constant surveillance, are severely disciplined for minor infractions and must meet punishing quotas that leave them physically drained and sometimes injured and sick.

The Infinite Greed, Power And Controls Of Giant Corporations

August 9, 2020 Ralph Nader. Educate! Apple, CEO Pay, Corporate greed, Corporatism

The combination of greed and power often spin out of control and challenge the enforceable rule of law and the countervailing force of the organized civic community. When greed and power are exercised by giant multinational corporations that escape the discipline of the nation-state, the potential for evil becomes infinite in nature. Enough is never enough. Global giant companies, aided and abetted by their corporate attorneys and accountants, can literally decide how little taxes they are going to pay by shifting profits and expenses among different tax haven countries such as Ireland, Luxembourg, and Panama.

‘Bloody’ Protesters Turn Apple Store Into ER Ward

July 2, 2018 Staff, Rt.com Resist! Apple, Paris, Protests, Tax Evasion

Dozens of activists turned a Paris-based Apple Store into an emergency ward complete with x-rays, surgeons, bloody patients and even a waiting room to denounce tax evasion. The elaborate demonstration, staged by the Association for the Taxation of Financial Transactions and for Citizen Action (ATTAC), on Saturday was in protest of Apple’s tax evasion practices and their impact on social services like the public health institutions in France. Protesters dressed in scrubs performed treatments on ‘patients’ on hospital beds or lying on the floor of the crowded store. Others chanted “we’re here, even if we do not want it, we’re here,” and marched around the store, while some played a giant game of Operation.

Apple Execs Face Jail In France After Lawsuit Over Slowing Down iPhones

December 30, 2017 Rory Mulholland, Thelocal.fr Resist! Apple, Corruption, France, Lawsuit

A French activist group has launched a criminal lawsuit against Apple over its policy of slowing down older iPhones in a case that could see the tech giant 's executives jailed and cost it five percent of its income if convicted of the crime of "planned obsolescence". The move by Halte à l’Obsolescence Programmée (HOP - Stop Planned Obsolescence), an environmental association, comes after lawsuits were launched this week in the US against Apple for similar reasons. The suit was filed on Wednesday in the Paris prosecutor’s office, HOP said in a statement. “Apple has put in place a global strategy of programmed obsolescence in order to boost its sales” of new iPhones, the group said.

How Shareholder Pressure Worked At Apple

November 10, 2016 Andrew Behar, www.ecowatch.com Resist! Apple, Capitalism

By Andrew Behar for Eco Watch - A classic example of a negotiation with a notoriously tough corporation that was quite heated (but ended up with a positive change) took place leading up to May 2, 2007, when Apple CEO, Steve Jobs, made the public statement on the Apple website, "Today is the first time we have openly discussed our plans to become a greener Apple. It will not be the last. We apologize for leaving you in the dark for so long."

iPhone Or iExploit? Rampant Labor Violations In Apple’s Supply Chain

August 27, 2016 Nicki Lisa Cole, www.truth-out.org Educate! Apple, Exploitation, Labor

By Nicki Lisa Cole for Truthout - Right now hundreds of thousands of young Chinese workers are laboring on iPhone 7 production lines. With these products set to launch in September, the final assembly is happening in a series of Foxconn and Pegatron factories across the country. Foxconn is likely a familiar name to readers, as it became the focal point of international media attention in 2012 after widespread legal and ethical labor violations were revealed by This American Life and The New York Times.

Black Lives Matter Joins Apple In Encryption Fight

March 18, 2016 Joan McCarter, www.dailykos.com Resist! Apple, Black Lives Matter (BLM), Encryption, FBI

By Joan McCarter for Daily Kos - Civil rights groups have a profound and long-standing interest in law enforcement and the surveillance state, that's what has them joining Apple in its fight with the FBI to protect our right to protect our data. In recent weeks, voices in the movement and civil rights activists such as the Rev. Jesse Jackson have met with Apple officials and filed briefs on behalf of the company, which is resisting a court order to unlock an iPhone used by one of the San Bernardino shooters. […]

What’s Really At Stake In The Apple Encryption Debate

February 29, 2016 Julia Angwin, www.propublica.org Educate! Apple, Encryption, FBI, Surveillance

By Julia Angwin for Pro Publica - The FBI’s much-discussed request to Apple can seem innocuous: Help us extract six weeks of encrypted data from the locked iPhone of Syed Farook, an employee of San Bernardino’s health department who spearheaded an attack that killed 14 people. Most people believe Apple should comply. But the FBI is demanding a lot more than the data on a single phone. It has obtained a court order requiring Apple to build custom surveillance software for the FBI – which computer security expert Dan Guido cleverly dubs an FBiOS.

«1 2 »

Daily movement news and resources