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Apple Workers Successfully Vote to Form First US Union

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Apple’s employees have become the latest to successfully vote to form a union, signaling a potential increase in unionization amid resistance by big US tech companies.

The union vote was finalized on Saturday after the majority of employees at an Apple store in Towson, Maryland voted yes to a union, marking the first Apple store in the US. Apple, like others, has strongly opposed unionization efforts, pushing back at attempts by workers at the company’s other retail locations to unionize. The vote could set a unionization precedent for other Apple retail location workers.

A total of 65 workers voted yes and 33 opposed. Per CNBC, approximately 110 employees were eligible to vote to join the International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers. Voting started on Wednesday and ran through Saturday evening.

“We did it Towson! We won our union vote! Thanks to all who worked so hard and all who supported!” Towson organizers tweeted.

The National Labor Relations Board has provided support for workers in different US companies seeking to unionize, as long as they meet the labor requirements.

The NLRB still needs to certify the votes. That could take around a week. The watchdog said Apple is required to bargain with the union over working conditions after the vote is certified.

In a further report, CNBC gives details of the Towson store, which isn’t one of Apple’s so-called “flagship” stores in high-traffic areas in big cities, but a smaller location inside a mall, made its unionization success.

The store received attention from Apple management as soon as workers announced plans to unionize. Apple’s head of retail and HR, Deirdre O’Brien, visited the location in May. A recorded message from O’Brien distributed to employees after union drives went public discouraged retail workers from joining unions, saying that doing so would make it harder for Apple to respond to employee concerns. She said unions are not committed to the company’s employees.

Workers are seeking more input over pay and working conditions, like how the stores handle Covid safety and other operations.

“To be clear, the decision to form a union is about us as workers gaining access to rights that we do not currently have,” Towson organizers wrote in a letter to Apple CEO Tim Cook.

The Towson store is one of several Apple locations that have publicly announced union drives and other retail organizers at other locations are watching its results closely. Two high-traffic, high-volume stores in New York, the Grand Central Terminal and World Trade Center locations, have signaled that they are unionizing, but have yet to advance to the stage of having an official vote.

One store in Atlanta, Georgia was scheduled to have an election earlier this month that was delayed indefinitely after the union, Communication Workers of America, alleged that Apple intimidated its employees. Stores in Louisville, Kentucky and Nashville, Tennessee are also in the process of organizing, according to NBC News.

The Apple retail union at the Towson store is unlikely to jeopardize Apple’s core business model of selling devices and services. Although Apple stores are a key channel for selling products, Apple also sells through its website and retail partners like carriers. Apple’s hourly workforce is smaller than other companies currently facing waves of union drives, like Amazon and Starbucks.

Apple is one of the most profitable companies in the world. It reported over $365 billion in global sales in 2021, and says its retail employees in the U.S. make at least $22 per hour.

ALUU 4 – Ten year remembrance: no to jungle justice

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Today makes it exactly 10 years after the unwanton lynching of the four students of the University of Port Harcourt in June 2012.

Whenever the news of this incident is remembered it sends a cold chill to everyone’s spine due to the circumstances in which they died and the way they were killed, it is a very terrible story of how four young boys were mobbed to death and then hung tires around their neck and burnt them to ashes. 

The story of what truly happened according to the report submitted by the law enforcement agents after carrying out their investigations goes; four boys who were friends and all students of the University of Port Harcourt by the names Lloyd, Ugonna, Chidiaka, and Tekena visited the house of their debtor to collect their debt, the debtor was not yielding to the voice of reason so they decided to take and confiscate some items belonging to the debtors and took the items with them. The debtor raised an alarm that the boys were thieves who have broken into his house and stolen his properties and are going away with the items. 

Neighbors and passers-by sprung into action, chased the boys down, and started beating them without giving room for the boys to share their side of the story.

They tore their clothes, paraded them around the neighborhood naked, beat the boys until they were too weak to run or even speak and the mobsters crown it all up by setting the boys ablaze, labeling them down as thieves and secret cult members who have been terrorizing the neighborhood.

This is the sad story of how the lives of four young boys in their prime were abruptly cut shut. 

What happened to the Aluu four should never have happened and should never be allowed to repeat itself under any circumstances again in Nigeria and Nigerians should in the memory of the Aluu four take a solid stand against jungle justice. An aggrieved person must learn to seek redress through the right channels and institutions which are the law enforcement agencies or the judiciary. 

If everyone resorts to self-help and jungle justice the society will revolve back to the state of nature where life is nasty, brutish, and short. 

Christain Religion fanaticism in Nigeria

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Religion is the greatest menace plaguing Nigerian society. Surprisingly, our problem is not even politics but religion. Some religions are raising cult groups, fanatics, and extremists, those that can kill and cause mayhem and would not mind clearing off entire mankind or go any length in the fight and defense of their religion. 

When we talk about religious extremism and fanaticism, people cast their minds first to the Islam religion but surprisingly, Islam is not the only religion with some sects being fanatics and extremists; some Christian religious groups are arguable raising extremists who if care is not taken will soon start taking up arms to cause havoc all in the name of fighting for their god, fighting for their leader or in defense of their church. 

Some Christian religious leaders are raising cult members, feeding their minds, and feasting their souls with adulterated doctrines of the Christian faith, some have turned some of the followers into violent extremists waiting to explode at any slightest opportunity. 

What happened in Adoration ground on Sunday is a recent case study on how some of the Christain religious groups if not bridled may blow up into terrible violent groups who can do anything, “anything” in defense of their leader or church. 

The protest that was staged on Sunday by the members of the adoration ministry or “adorers” (as they are fondly called) for the fact that the higher authority of the catholic religion in Enugu state decided to call the adoration ministry spiritual director to order should be a cause to worry about. 

Background to the story: Adoration Ministry is a religious group that was founded by Father Ejike Mbaka and is located in Enugu State, Nigeria. Father Mbaka as he is famously called is fond of getting involved in politics and telling his followers who to vote and who not to vote during the elections period, sometimes, he publicly insults politicians and lays curses on them in his church before the worshippers. 

The story goes that he (Mbaka) had an unsettled score with Mr. Peter Obi, the former governor of Anambra state and a presidential hopeful under the platform of the labour party and he (Mbaka) got a wind that Peter Obi is contesting for the presidency, he launched a verbal attack on Peter Obi, he stated before his worshippers that Peter Obi is a stingy person and cannot be Nigerian President that a stingy man cannot be a Nigerian president.

Mr. Mbaka, during his weekly ministration service, last Wednesday is quoted to have said emphatically that Mr. Obi will never be the president of Nigeria come 2023 because Obi is a “stingy man who does not give out money to people.”

He said unless Mr. Obi returned to his ministry to apologize for refusing to make a donation to the ministry when he was asked to do so, his ambition to become president of Nigeria would be fruitless.

Many Nigerians, especially the youths who have been the major advocates of Mr. Obi’s emergence as Nigerian President come 2023 severally called out and criticized Mr. Mbaka over his comment on Obi. 

The Enugu Diocese of the Catholic church first disassociated themselves from the comment of Mr. Mbaka and the Bishop of Enugu Diocese, Callistus Onaga subsequently banned Catholic members from attending activities of the Father Mbaka ministry until further notice. 

The worshippers of the chapel launched a heated protest on Sunday, protesting against the Bishop, some are even threatening to Kill the Bishop and Kill Peter Obi and some can be heard boldly praying that the Holy spirit should kill the Bishop. 

The fact that a Christain religious group can stage a heated protest against the superior head of their organization for the reason that the superior called their leader to order is troublesome. One will be forced to ask what doctrine are they being taught in their place of worship because the Bible I also read which is the handbook of the Christain religion states: 

“Everyone must submit himself to the governing authorities, for there is no authority except that which God has established. The authorities that exist have been established by God”- Romans 13:1.

Business Growth and Lean Supply Chain At Tekedia Institute

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The world of commerce is nothing but supply chain. If you improve your supply chain, you can have competitive advantages in the market. That improvement comes with deepening optimization, agility and lean management. Tekedia Institute faculty, Chibueze Noshiri, on Tuesday (Tomorrow) will explain how to design, develop and execute a winning supply chain framework.

Mr Noshiri worked in DHL and UPS where he rose to Global Engineering EUD Manager – Global Logistics. Today, he works in Barry Callebaut Group, Belgium which turns cocoa to chocolate.

He will help us understand how we can accelerate business growth through an efficient supply chain regime.

Tekedia Mini-MBA >> master the mechanics of entrepreneurial capitalism here

OSUN 2022: Opposition Increases Attacks Campaign Strategy Use, Slightly Abandons Issue-Based Campaign

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The People’s Democratic Party, the Osun state’s main opposition party, has increased its level of deploying attacks campaign strategy while abandoning engaging the electorate on issues and needs that are important. This was revealed in the non-governmental organisation’s most recent report on campaign monitoring in the state.

The sixth report of the monitoring states that political parties and their supporters deployed more attacks than acclaims and defenses, though defensive messages outweighed the acclaimed ones. Specifically, the ruling party aligned with defenses and acclaims than attacks as its strategic communication approaches while the main opposition party largely deployed attacks as a strategy.

“As observed in the previous weeks monitored, attacking the personality of opponents and their political parties remains a strategy deployed by the political parties, though the ruling party has drastically reduced its attack strategy if we consider what was observed in week one of the monitoring. The ruling party remains the only political party that has significantly engaged the public across the campaign issues in the last six weeks. The party has discussed what he has done in the areas of health, social programmes and workers’ salary, welfare and employment more than telling the public what it intended to do differently if elected for another four years. The main opposition party, on the other hand, has relatively engaged the public by discussing issues and needs within agriculture, security and economy more than other expectations of the public.

Also, during the week, opposition parties condemned some policies of the ruling party (e.g., salaries and pensions, roads, education) while the ruling party issued rejoinders to defend itself. This, we believe, is a feature of democratic political contests in as much as the condemnations and the defenses are evidence-based and backed. Having a discussion on local government autonomy by the main opposition party shows that its campaign is being directed to the grassroots. Despite this, issues that cannot influence the potential voters’ decision on July 16, 2022 also appeared in the communication infrastructure of the political parties this week.”

The report further notes that as campaigns get hotter and the election day draws nearer, political thuggery or violence and vote buying keep appearing in discussions of political parties and their supporters. We therefore urge the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) to partner with security agents in the state with a view to ensuring lives and property of voters are protected on the election day.

“We also urge the INEC to convene meetings of political stakeholders in the state where issues relating to vote buying and violence alongside the legal penalties for offenders will be discussed. In addition, as election draws nearer, we specifically suggest that the two main political parties convene meetings among their media teams and handlers, and enlighten them on the need for decorum and strategic issue-based campaigns across their online platforms. This, we believe, will reduce the toxic political atmosphere being observed in Osun online-sphere,” the report notes.

Download the full report here