Unions need to be honest that - like any negotiation - they might "win" something but lose other things.
I don't know the hourly salary of Apple employees, but let's assume for the sake of the argument it's 50 USD/hr after taxes. And let's assume a Coursera course costing 400 USD will require 20 hours to be completed. If you do such a course during your private time you are giving Apple 12h (20 - 400/50) of your time for free for educating yourself for the company.
That being said, I personally value my free time outside of work 1.5x higher than work time. It helps me evaluating if something is worth my personal time. Means if the company offers to pay for training I am happy to do so during work time, and if I think the training can be beneficial for me in general I am also willing to contribute some PTO time in return as long as the partial (the time the company expects me to do outside work) costs of the course are bigher than 1.5x my hourly salary multiplied by the number of hours I need to spend on this.
I hope it's somehow clear what I am trying to say. Native German speaker here.
Maybe Apple specifically didn't do it this specific time, but there's a long rich history of exactly this happening going back 140 years. You see it in unionizing literature as a predictable and expected response.
The union may ask for the extra perks next time they negotiate. until then they get what they previously agreed to.
If the DoL continues this way, people are going to unionize without doing the "recognition" process. e.g. IWW
That being said, companies do this all the time, at least in my experience. I’ve worked at multiple companies that employee union and non-union employees. Unionized workers have a contract, which is one of the things you’re accepting when you unionize. Companies can offer new benefits, but I think most assessments aren’t going to see this as “literally illegal”. Some of the benefit differences I’ve seen firsthand is the amount of PTO, sick leave, and education benefits. I’m not a lawyer in the least, and Apple may be breaking the law in some other way, but this seems like a normal practice based solely on the number of companies that employ it.
As far as why this might be illegal, here's some background https://news.bloomberglaw.com/daily-labor-report/starbucks-n...
> Withhold changes in wages or benefits during a union organizing campaign that would have been made had the union not been on the scene, unless you make clear to employees that the change will occur whether or not they select the union, and that your sole purpose in postponing the change is to avoid any appearance of trying to influence the outcome of the election.
However, this is only relevant during the organizing campaign. Not after, as is the case here.
Except there are unionizing efforts going on in a lot of their stores. So this is illegal for any of the stores that are currently in the progress of it, but have not yet committed to it.
I'm fairly confident in this (I was a union organizer who has gone through an NLRB election), but do you have any precedent suggesting otherwise?
The article says only the store that is unionized isn't getting the benefit. What am I missing here?
https://www.nlrb.gov/about-nlrb/rights-we-protect/the-law/in...
My understanding is that Apple has many stores starting the process of unionizing, but only the store that already has been unionized are the benefits been withheld. Apple seems to be compliant to the law you shared.
Do you mind quoting which sentence?