I work at Apple in the Apple Care department, but not for the Apple Care yalls moms call for help. This has been happening for literally years and I've spoken about it before but no one really took it seriously but now here we are. We were told that we be in a hiring freeze for the foreseeable future and that hiring and promotions would only happen onsite. If we wanted to be promoted we needed to move to Austin or San Fran, the two most expensive cities in the country with no guarantee of a promotion, on our own dime, knowing we won't make a living wage there. Keep in mind that this meeting was being given to a massive department who's main workforce is and has always been WFH.
This type of crap should be mega illegal. I feel like I see this all the time. I don't know how you would ever prove beyond a reasonable doubt that they are actually "laying people off" tho which I presume means it's unfortunately gonna stick around as a method for companies to avoid severance which sucks.
Also, not for nothing but San Fran and Austin are definitely not two most expensive cities in the country. San Fran is kinda up there. Maybe like top 5 in some lists. I legitimately couldn't find Austin in a single one but I only checked up to like the top 25 or 30 cities.
Hiring freeze? I had an Apple recruiter reach out to me just a couple weeks ago. That's in EU though. They weren't happy that I was not willing to relocate for them.
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Apple is fucked beyond repair
Why? Is it out of warranty period? 🤔
I find that ANY thread about Apple will swarm with their fanboys to defend their every little move, no matter how big or small their fuck up is.
Their marketing really did a number on people's head, Apple gets close to being a cult.
On Lemmy, any Apple thread is mostly hatred towards them. Nerds even swarm in on the communities setup to talk about Apple products.
Apple stans have the iq of simple jack
Simple (Headphone) Jack
Don't worry, Texas has importing tech workers since around COVID and it's only a matter of time until they import enough new voters to fundamentally change laws down there...
I worry that tech bros who live in Texas will be way more susceptible to the ancap mind virus than they are now
Not if they keep up with their gerrymandering, it’d take a shit load of tech bros to counteract gerrymandering.
They are just a small startup they can't afford to pay 121 people on their meager earnings. Hell they can't even afford to update their phone design in 3 years.
Former Apple employee (retail, then corporate). I'm shocked that Tim Cook, an out gay man, would allow such a move. Texas is a hellhole. This is bullshit. Fuck Apple for this one.
He is a capitalist billionaire which means he has more allegiance with $$$
He's got his. He doesn't give a fuck about other gay people. He'll be fine.
I've met multiple out gay people who aren't LGBT friendly (or, more commonly, aren't 'BT' friendly) even without the profit motive of being a piece of shit like Tim Cook has.
Being LGBT certainly makes you more likely to take progressive attitudes, but it far from guarantees it.
Tim Cook hates gay people!
Money and greed overrides any sort of class or queer solidarity
A capitalist is a capitalist first, a capitalist second, a capitalist third, and then everything else he is after that. He'd sell the blood of his fellow queers if he thought he could turn a profit.
Tim Cook will never have to live in that fascist state, he only has to donate to watch others suffer from the safety of his Palo Alto home where his rights are respected.
Otherwise known as constructive dismissal. Nasty. But hey, everyone wants that new iPhone amiright?
And apple made, like, almost $100B profit last year. It's not like they can't make their crappy stuff if they don't lay off those 100 or so people.
Sadly, most tech companies are doing this, and they're doing it in a way that frames it as you volunteering to leave, resulting in people losing their job and being able to claim unemployment benefits.
Given how shit the job market is for certain roles (recruitment, especially), it's a horrid thing to do.
The US jurisprudence of take the plea deal or face excessive charges seems to have found a home up Tim Cook's asshole.
Is it surprising that Apple, like every giant tech company that is way too big, treats its employees like shit? Do we think Google and Microsoft don't treat employees in a similarly shitty way? Or even any other huge company?
I have no love for Apple, but it seems like OP thinks this is something that makes Apple special. I mean single out Apple for shit like their products being overpriced or their notebooks not having enough RAM for their OS unless you want to pay a premium. This is just (really unfortunately) typical of modern late-stage capitalism.
First, I think it has more to do with OP reacting to the article they linked rather than searching for bad things Apple specifically has done. Second, we can talk about shitty Apple products or policies for ages, but this action in particular isn't like 'Oh no, the first-gen AR/VR goggles I bought for $4,000 aren't making the world literally Ready Player One'. No, this is (one of many) business decision that is directly fucking over their own employees in ways that are threatening to their entire livelihoods; 'Either uproot your lives and move hundreds of miles away to a place statistically less safe for most of you, or you're fired'
is there any case law on whether forced RTO or RTO with relocation counts as constructive dismissal for unemployment purposes?
If this forces you to quit, would it be an option to start initialing a union to get fired, instead of quitting? Forcing them to pay compensations that might be in your contract. Or would this be a bad idea with regard to the references in your résumé? (I'm not from the US.)
Sadly, there is a HUGE anti-union sentiment in tech, almost to a religious degree. I don't think the tech industry is smart enough to unionise, similarly to the video game industry, who have dealt with equal amounts of shit, yet still plug away in horrible conditions.
With that being said, while I think unions should exist in tech, I truly believe that the likes of Apple and co would gladly kill off 100k jobs and delay launches, if it means killing off union efforts. For it to be effective, it would need to be internationally recognised, have a large enough number of people to make mass firings near impossible without significant business harm, and be solely tied to minimum income equity.
Sadly, there is a HUGE anti-union sentiment in tech, almost to a religious degree. I don't think the tech industry is smart enough to unionise, similarly to the video game industry, who have dealt with equal amounts of shit, yet still plug away in horrible conditions.
The fact that the pro-union people won't even try to hide their contempt for the people they claim to represent certainly isn't helping matters. Unionization involves a lot of trust and union organizers seem unwilling to lift a finger to earn that trust, instead jumping immediately to insults whenever someone doesn't instantly toe the line.
I truly believe that the likes of Apple and co would gladly kill off 100k jobs and delay launches, if it means killing off union efforts.
I've been pondering this and I honestly am not sure... because I can see them being that scared of unionizing, but there's also the modern capitalist notion, especially in the tech sector, of endless growth. So would they delay launches when it could cost them revenue? I honestly do not know the answer here.
Obviously, I want the tech sector unionized. I just don't know what exactly Apple and the others would to to stop it. They would do something, and something very nasty. I'm just not sure about mass layoffs and delayed product launches.
How is this even legal?
US labor law is a joke, that's how.
Is what your mum said when she saw your face for the first time.
That's what I would've said. Have you seen a newborn? They look like a ballsack with a mouth.
Capital One is doing similar right now.
He doesn't have to live there.
I don’t like forced in-person work unless it’s just a quarterly on-site where they fly us in and pay for accommodations. I agree that Texas is fucked until they fix their abortion laws, however it is worth mentioning that Austin is a liberal city and does not function the same way as the rest of Texas in many regards. It is becoming a tech hub and would be cool if my company relocated there, as long as they flew me in quarterly and didn’t expect anything more than that. Really great BBQ. They do have a bad homeless problem though.
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Being in a liberal city in a horribly red state doesn't protect residents from the cruelty of said state. It doesn't stop the racial profiling intended to terrorize immigrant/mixed stays families, it doesn't re-attract healthcare workers, it doesn't prevent kids getting harassed for their pronouns in schools. In many places, Texas makes laws that takes away power from it's more liberal areas, like how Houston schools have been taken over by the state, or how Denton can't ban fracking in its city limits. Also, Texas doesn't have a ton of public lands (state/national parks) for people to use. But what people lose by moving to a state like Texas, they gain in so many new experiences: being sued by anyone and everyone for abortions, waiting for hours to vote, the glorification of guns, legislators arguing to put the 10 commandments in every classroom in the state, $7.25 minimum wage (hell, again, the state doesn't even allow cities to set higher minimum wages within their limits), right to work/get fired, an electric grid not up to federal standards, and so much more. But yeah, the BBQ is really fucking good. And the fresh flour tortillas, those are amazing. I wish I had a Chuy's nearby...
Yeah. I don’t want to live there, but if my company wants to tax shelter there and fly me in occasionally for Franklin brisket and La BBQ everything else, that would be perfectly fine. The state will hopefully improve in time.
why the hell did they try to force the narrative here that Texas = bad? You guys know it’s a state just like any of the other 50 right.
Regardless of what you think about the forced move from SD to Texas, it’s not like they’re being transferred to Iraq.
It's not just "one of the 50." Texas is now an authoritarian shithole and (also Florida) a blueprint for the GOP for how they want to rule all the other 50 should they get all branches of government. Deal with it. Women there have no bodily anatomy and likely soon, no more right to live if they have an ectoplasmic pregnancy because of a god that they may or may not acknowledge but the state government does. If the state government could have their way, they'd probably not hesitate to roll back women's right to vote and execute LGBTQ individuals. Fuck Abbott.
Other 49.
And have you seen some of Texas' laws? Be they labour laws or laws like women not having body autonomy? Batshit insane gun laws? Or them being the 2nd worst state for mass shootings in 2023, and worst in 2022?
Idk, from an outsider looking in, Texas seems like a complete and utter shithole.
I can't decide which overused quote to put here so I'm just going to use them both:
"Why did you sting me knowing that we shall both now drown?"
"And then they came for me - and there was no one left to speak for me."
Did these people ever think Apple cared about them? Did they think their years of hard loyalty would serve as some bargaining chip the second that their precious green arrow was on the line?
I couldnt imagine having ~80 natural years on this earth and dedicating years of my labor to one of the most destructive companies in history and then acting shocked when all of the sudden I was in the line of fire.
Just so we all know who we're talking about, Apple is the company that installed suicide nets on their factories because it was the cheapest way to prevent their workers from killing themselves which was a frequent enough problem on its own to warrant a solution.
I think it's more complicated than that, my friend.
Not many people have the luxury of choosing an occupation that aligns with their ideals. A person may have taken a job at Apple out of necessity because it's all that was offered, or perhaps to maintain their legal status in the country (H-1B visa), or because they have burgeoning student debts, or maybe they were as yet unaware of the corporate trend towards employee exploitation.
Anyway, putting on the blame on the one's being laid off instead of on the one's laying off is not helping anyone except the C-suite of Apple.
Yes exactly, you can't blame the people being laid off, they are just trying to live and I imagine a job at a company like Apple was a dream. I mean you can't blame anyone who takes that opportunity, the salary, the credentials. The US workers really need to get the union situation sorted out in a major way.
Sometimes it's as simple as a shitty company being the only company willing to pay you to do what you want to do.
Apple installed suicide nets on their factories because it was the cheapest way to prevent their workers from killing themselves.
I mean, people can work at a large company like Apple just for the salary. It's pretty naive to assume any or all of those laid off worked at Apple long-term and were loyal to their employer because of the marketing prestige.
The complaint is Apple starting out of the bad press by doing soft layoffs like this. Literally everyone in tech right now is aware that they can get laid off, as has been happening to hundreds of thousands of workers the last two full years.
People are just trying to make the best of this situation we have to experience called life. I used to work for smaller companies and they have pros and cons just like large companies. Then I was laid off and the only place that would hire me and not give me a pay cut was a large corporation. So here I am now. Let me be clear, I do not want to work for this company. But what they provide me for the time being, is stability where other companies are laying people off left and right. They hired me as a remote employee and then a few months later said everyone had to return to the office a few times a week. I don't trust this company and I never did, but until the economy stabilizes and I can find another solid job, I'm stuck. I can't just not work, and I refuse to go back to being poor and struggling to stay afloat. So I feel for these people. You don't always have a reasonable choice in employment when things aren't stable but you also have to think about supporting yourself or maybe kids.
TLDR: It's not always so cut and dry of a situation as "don't work for a shitty company". All I'm trying to say, is that you should really step back and try to think about these situations from others' perspectives sometimes.
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one of the most destructive companies in history
Fuck Apple, but come on. It's not an oil company. It's not clear cutting forests. It's not making its revenue from chattel slavery and stealing land. Apple is fucking awful, but it's not exactly the East India Company.
It's crazy the downvotes you're getting when everything you said is true. People don't like feeling bad for their choices though so when you force them to, just for a second, think about their purchasing power and the harm those choices cause really messes with them. Then they get mad and try to argue about it.
No one thinks they're wrong, but there are wrong people.
