PARIS
\nWorkers at Apple (AAPL.O) stores in France began a nationwide strike over pay and working conditions on Friday in a protest designed to coincide with the launch of the iPhone 15.
\nIt is the latest headache for the tech giant in France after it was forced to stop selling its iPhone 12 model earlier this month for above-threshold radiation. Apple disputes the findings of the French watchdog.
\nAbout 30 staff were picketing outside the company\u2019s store in Opera in central Paris, one of three in the French capital, a few metres away from a line of about 40 customers waiting in the rain to enter the shop.
\n\u201cWe are still the people who make Apple\u2019s wealth, and therefore I think that we deserve a little more honorable treatment than what we are given today,\u201d said Anais Durel, a 36-year old who has worked for Apple for 10 years.
\nApple unions including CGT, Unsa, CFDT and Cidre-CFTC, which also plan to strike on Saturday, have asked for a 7% wage increase to compensate for inflation, and an end to a months-long hiring freeze. Management did not want to offer more than a 4.5% hike, union officials said.
\n\u201cInflation is still quite nasty. There are a lot of employees who are experiencing difficulties,\u201d said Tarek, a CGT union leader who declined to give his last name.
\n\u201cThe goal is not at all to block sales of the iPhone, the goal is really to bring awareness to this situation,\u201d he added.
\nStaff at an Apple store in Barcelona, where about 250 people were queuing to enter the store on Friday morning, were set to join colleagues in France in protesting against working conditions.
\nAbout 20 workers will set up an information picket outside the store on Paseo de Gracia in central Barcelona at midday, said Pablo Paredes, leader of the CNT Apple union.
\nParedes said the workers aim to highlight poor working conditions including contracts which do not compensate them for working at weekends or at night.
\nCNT is a minority union and only active in one of Barcelona\u2019s two stores. The union has not yet managed to secure a meeting with the company to lodge its complaints, Paredes said.
\n\u201cWe have been talking since August to our colleagues on strike in France. In Spain, unlike them, not all the unions have agreed to strike,\u201d Paredes said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
PARIS Workers at Apple (AAPL.O) stores in France began a nationwide strike over pay and working conditions on Friday in a protest designed to coincide with the launch of the iPhone 15. It is the latest headache for the tech giant in France after it was forced to stop selling its iPhone 12 model earlier […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":357708,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-357682","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-world"},"yoast_head":"\n