In addition to the long lines of iPhone 6 customers, Apple Stores across the United States are going to see another group of people gathering today: protesting security workers.
The Service Employees International Union (SEIU) is planning to stage protests at more than 20 different Apple Store in the U.S., pushing Apple to provide full-time work benefits for for its security officers.
“We are asking tech companies like Apple to support good jobs for workers who contribute to their success,” SEIU spokesman Alfredo Fletes told SFGate.
Fletes says that he expects around 15 protestors to turn up at the Stockton Street Apple Store in San Francisco for the first day of the iPhone 6 launch.
This is far from the first time Apple’s own security officers have been involved in a similar protest. Last month a demonstration involving around 50 people blocked customers from entering the main doors of Apple’s flagship San Francisco Union Square retail store.
While the Apple Store remained opened during this time, customers had to enter through a side door. The event ended with the San Francisco Police Department removing around 12 protestors on the basis that they had failed to follow police orders telling them to disband.
Given that today is the biggest Apple launch day in years (thanks to the record-breaking number of preorders placed for the iPhone 6 and 6 Plus), the protest is likely to attract considerable coverage, particularly if it proves an impediment to fans getting their hands on new iPhones.
Source: SFGate
Luke Dormehl is a U.K.-based journalist and author, with a background working in documentary film for Channel 4 and the BBC. He is the author of The Apple Revolution and The Formula: How Algorithms Solve All Our Problems … and Create More, both published by Penguin/Random House. His tech writing has also appeared in Wired, Fast Company, Techmeme and other publications.
4 responses to “Workers protest outside Apple Stores on iPhone 6 launch day”
Stop making your point so ineffectively!
They have done this before and the question has come up about who actually employs this staff. Apparently the answer is not Apple. They are NOT the employer of record. Some security company is. Apple merely has a contract with them.
So really all these protests might do is get Apple to change companies, not to actually get them to do jack for this non employees.
Sacramento’s Arden Fair Mall had a bunch of idiot protestors today. Everyone began yelling at them to leave before they were escorted out by Sacramento PD and Mall Security.
These people must be the same parents that are responsible for raising the dumbest hybrid in history “HIPSTERS”