9 Brodie Daniels, Past RAFFWU Delegate As soon as Apple announced a new EA, I knew I needed to do something. Having worked at Woolworths during their previous EA, I recognised the importance and urgency for action. Already having qualms with the zombie agreement that was in place, this truly felt like the only chance to make meaningful change. I worked for over six months without two consecutive days rostered off and had no protections for scheduling in the zombie agreement. After reading the agreement, I began chatting to colleagues to gather their thoughts and opinions. I was really surprised that the majority of people hadn’t actually read it. There was an immense lack of knowledge around the process of bargaining and what the agreement actually contained. After rounding up a few team members who were also part of RAFFWU, we started to become more organised. Apple Australia certainly had never seen this level of unionising in their stores, and especially this quickly. They were immensely underprepared. Displaying and sharing factual information about the agreement soon became taboo and frowned upon. Even months into the bargaining process, there were still managers who hadn’t even read the agreement but were loudly exclaiming the benefits in captive audience meetings. When managers informed everyone taking protected industrial action, that they were not going to be protected if they joined RAFFWU after the PABO, and I called them out for this misinformation, everyone was told to “do your own research”. The workplace soon became volatile with managers and other colleagues bullying team taking action. Despite all these setbacks, the team kept fighting for what was right and have now ended up with an immensely better agreement than previously. RAFFWU made me feel incredibly safe and protected throughout this daunting process. Taking industrial action can be scary, especially considering this was a first. The sense of community and support that was fostered throughout this experience was fantastic. RAFFWU made it genuinely feel like a fight we were not fighting alone. Dani Barley, Delegate at Apple Broadway & RAFFWU President Taking on a $4 trillion company was never going to be easy, but I don’t think we realised how ridiculous it would be at times. Having fantastic RAFFWU members from around the country made it a little easier, even when we were having to negotiate for something as basic as sufficient toilet to staff ratios. Some stores only have ONE on-site toilet/change room, for up to 100 workers at a time. The amount of time and effort that all of the delegates and workplace leaders (not to mention our amazing RAFFWU staff) put in should make every RAFFWU member proud. When we compare our new Agreement to the ones we stopped in 2022, there were significant gains made. And while Apple is currently doing their level best to sell this deal as a success on their part, employees know that the gains were made through our sustained RAFFWU action. It was so vindicating to have such a positive reaction from the community and it helped confirm that what we were doing was momentous, brave, admirable, historic, and most of all — right. - Dom, Delegate at Apple Chermside
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