AppleTogether Roll Call—Volume One
Apple at the core…
Its core value…
Is that we believe that
PEOPLE WITH PASSION
can change the world
for the better.
-Steve Jobs
Apple at the core…
Its core value…
Is that we believe that
PEOPLE WITH PASSION
can change the world
for the better.
-Steve Jobs
Come meet the “people with passion” in our short movie, AppleTogether Roll Call: Volume One
From the video’s creator:
AppleTogether Roll Call: Volume One is a short film about the progress and the state of Apple unions world wide as of October 2022.
The theme of the movie is the 1980s TV show called “The A-Team”. It is well worth looking up if you have never seen it. The theme song for the A-Team, by Mike Post, Pete Carpenter and performed here by The Daniel Caine Orchestra, is probably one of the best TV show themes ever written. (Seriously, it really should be a national anthem.)
The purpose of this movie can be broken into five points:
- To introduce (and connect) all of the unions that represent Apple employees around the world;
- to counteract the anti-union propaganda being spread by Apple management;
- to inspire others to join us;
- To use as many of our company’s own assets as possible to document ourselves
- and to serve as a time capsule marking our current progress at this moment in time.
POINT ONE: This movie was one of the first projects that AppleTogether worked on collectively, and it was a great way for unions across the world to get to know each other. Each scene was approved by members of the respective unions, and everyone was excited about the project. We had everyone from retail and phones, to people that actually design our software enthusiastically behind the concept. Nothing like a fun collaboration to build solidarity.
POINT TWO: In early 2022, Apple’s Senior VP Deirdre O’Brien released an anti-union video to the staff in the USA. In it she claimed that she was worried “about what it would mean to put another organization in the middle of our relationship”.
This was especially baffling to those of us that work for Apple outside of the USA, because unions have been active for years at Apple (some since 2007) in other countries. Putting together an animated union history as an organizing anthem, should help to emphatically dispel the myth that unions are unusual at Apple.
Deirdre O’Brien has since been directly invited to attend collective bargaining sessions in English in other countries, but she has declined to participate. Perhaps she will never know what it means.
POINT THREE: Organizing is difficult. Especially because once you declare your intentions, companies usually turn up the union-busting efforts and things can get stressful. Knowing that there are already others that have been organized for years and knowing that you can reach out to them for guidance and support, makes it easier. Add in humor to the history, and you can even make it fun.
POINT FOUR: Unions are not external groups. Unions are made up of workers, and workers are part of the company. We wanted to extend that concept to ensure that our productions were also made crafted from our own products.
This video was lovingly made on a Mac and we used as many of the default templates and transitions as we could, such as:
- The world map transitions from iMovie (perfect for an introduction of friends that are spread out across the globe), anvil, bounce and fireworks built-in animations (and others) from Keynote
- 3D text animation, lasers and water animation from Motion
- Lots of default Final Cut Pro transitions and a LOT of key framing
- The French coq and Swedish moose were drawn on an iPad Pro with an Apple Pencil
All of these assets are as familiar to Apple workers as the Mac startup sound at the beginning of the video. This video is by us, for us and is us.
POINT FIVE: The fourth point is the reason why this video breaks the number one rule of good slide show presentations: DON’T PUT TOO MUCH TEXT ON THE SCREEN!
Sorry about that, but we have a lot of history to pack into three and a half minutes.
This video is meant to be watched multiple times, so that you can catch new Easter eggs and details on each rewatch.
Challenge your friends to an emoji counting contest!
Have a drink for each union named! (But please don’t drive afterwards!)
Whoever shares this video the most, wins these emoji: 🦘🍅🐓🐄🍑
There are two emoji in the Cupertino scene that represent two of our most publicly known founders of AppleTogether:
✨ is Cher Scarlett and
🐻 is Janneke Parrish
You can learn more about them here.
Since they joined with others and worked to found AppleTogether, we have reached out across the globe to connect to all of our fellow “people with passion”. We are now an international kinship of those who strive to improve our standing through solidarity.
Because our soul is our people.
Because good enough, isn’t.
Because people that are crazy enough to think they can change the world are the ones that do.
Solidarity, friends!
Keep in touch!
The Apple union revolution WILL BE TELEVISED!
https://twitter.com/AppleLaborers
Sound engineering consultation: Randall Lipford
Cultural liaison consultation: JP Pasquin
