Unions to Apple: Develop a Conscience, Pay Your Taxes and Be a Good Neighbor

July 2014

Union members engaged customers outside the Apple store in Burlingame June 18 with leaflets that highlighted the ways Apple shirks its responsibility to communities in its home state. An ongoing campaign by the Service Employees International Union-United Service Workers West calls on the tech giant to end its practices of putting billions of dollars in profits in offshore accounts and contracting with a security company that perpetuates low-wage security jobs.

SMCLC Political Director Julie Lind joined SEIU-USWW staffers Rafael Ramos and Shandria Bernath-Plaisted at the Burlingame action. Romero said, “It’s not fair that Apple moves money offshore when it should be investing in its workforce in California.” Apple is one of many corporations that use “tax havens” in other countries—and other states—to avoid paying their fair share of taxes on massive profits. The union members said the response from the public had been positive and customers were supportive.

The SEIU-USWW campaign is supported by local Central Labor Councils across California and the California Labor Federation. The SEIU-USWW held similar actions earlier in June at four Apple Stores, as well as at the company’s Worldwide Developers Conference in San Francisco. Activists pointed out that that applications and products highlighted at the conference incorporate technologies developed with tax dollars—such as Global Positioning Satellites (GPS) and the touch screen. Bay Area activists called on Apple to pay California income taxes on the estimated $5 billion the company keeps in a Nevada subsidiary and the $102 billion they said the company holds in overseas accounts.

“I don't understand how a company that proudly displays a ‘Designed in California’ label on all of its products would turn its back to its home,” said security officer Mike Mally. “We all live under one Bay Area roof and we are all responsible for its upkeep. Apple benefits greatly from public infrastructure in California and should pay its fair share in taxes too.”

Apple also contracts with a security company that perpetuates bad, part-time jobs in the community and has intimidated security officers who have spoken out about working conditions. SEIU-USWW represents security workers in San Francisco and the East Bay and is campaigning to support security workers in the high tech industry in Silicon Valley.

Affordable housing activist Erin McElroy pointed out that Apple’s unpaid tax revenues could help Bay Area families and improve the region’s infrastructure. “From providing 20,000 housing vouchers to low-income families in San Francisco, to funding nearly 70,000 first-year CSU scholarships, Apple’s tax decisions would have a tremendous impact on every day life in our communities,” McElroy said.

SEIU-USWW members also marched outside the Apple store in downtown San Francisco April 15 to protest Apple’s offshore tax shelters.

The union pointed out that workers in the tech industry provide companies such as Apple, Google, Amazon, and eBay with billions in profits, but not all workers in tech—especially security officers—are doing well.

A statement on the TechCanDoBetter.Org website notes that, “By buying, creating, and funding research for high-tech products, we have all helped provide billions in profits for the nation’s tech industry. The tech industry—in turn—should do everything it can to support our communities—by practicing social and ecological responsibility. This means supporting good jobs, paying taxes, treating customers well, and safeguarding nature and human health. Beyond empty rhetoric, tech can really do its part to make the world a better place.”

For more information and to sign a petition calling on tech companies to pay their fair share, check http://techcandobetter.org.