Moll recalled.īlog 9to5 Mac also reported in late May that Apple was tweaking its raise schedule and delivering increases a few months early - at the end of this month rather than on September 30. "My manager called me into his office and said, 'Apple wants to show that it cares about its workers, and show that it knows how much value you add to the company, by offering a bigger raise than in previous years,' " Mr.
An Apple spokesman confirmed the raises but would not discuss their size, timing or impetus, nor who would earn them.īut Cory Moll, a salesman in the San Francisco flagship store and a vocal labor activist, said that on Tuesday he was given a raise of $2.82 an hour, to $17.31, an increase of 19.5 percent and a big jump compared with the 49-cent raise he was given last year. Last week, four months after The New York Times first began inquiring about the wages of its store employees, the company started to inform some staff members that they would receive substantial raises. The NYT - which since the beginning of the year has shone a spotlight on various aspects of Apple, from its offshoring of manufacturing to conditions at supplier factories to the company's strategies to reduce its taxes - says Apple started handing out substantial raises to some employees last week, several months after the paper began asking around about the situation at Apple Stores:Įven Apple, it seems, has recently decided it needs to pay its workers more. isn't selling they're helping people improve their lives). And it considers why the twentysomethings that clamor for jobs at Apple Stores are so enthusiastic about the retail positions (many, the NYT says, are Apple adherents to begin with, and many are won over by the sense of purpose instilled at the training sessions - which emphasize that Apple's sales corps. It also speaks of hectic working conditions and shifts with no breaks, and gives a peek at what some might call the lightly cultish atmosphere at employee training sessions. The extensive New York Times piece, which hit the Internet today bearing the headline "Apple's Retail Army, Long on Loyalty but Short on Pay," looks at what workers at the stores make relative to their commission-earning dopplegangers at carriers such as Verizon. Meet the man who wants an Apple retail union.The secret sauce to Apple's retail success? This man made it.