NEWS

Around North America in seven stories…

TECHNOLOGY

APPLE WORKER’S FIRST VOTE FOR UNION

APPLE WORKERS in Towson (Maryland) represent the third of the company’s stores to launch a push for a union this year, but have become the first to successfully hold a vote to establish the tech giant’s first retail union in the US.

Short for Coalition of Organized Retail Employees, the Apple Core union stated that the bid was “about us as workers gaining access to rights that we do not currently have”, but that it did not want to “go against or create conflict with our management”.

This action follows the move towards unionization by two other Apple stores in Atlanta and New York.

TRANSPORT TESLA STAFF REDUCTION TO IMPACT WORKFORCE

ELON MUSK has said that Tesla will reduce its salaried workforce by approximately 10 percent in the next three months.

At the same time, the company will expand the number of hourly employees hired.

After two former company employees launched a lawsuit against Tesla regarding alleged breached US labor laws, Musk sought to clarify how many Tesla workers will lose their jobs. At an event hosted by Bloomberg, Musk stated the numbers and prospective rise in hourly workers.

Recently, Musk has been under scrutiny when it comes to the treatment of employees, and this action will impact around 3.5 percent of Tesla’s overall workforce.

FOOD & DRINK STARBUCKS LEADERSHIP SWITCH

COFFEE GIANT Starbucks has changed its leadership.

The company’s North American president Rossann Williams has left Starbucks to be replaced by the head of the coffee chain’s Asia Pacific (APAC) division. Sara Trilling, who has been with Starbucks for two decades and previously oversaw the APAC region, has succeeded Williams, with the event marking the most recent change to the company’s leadership under interim CEO Howard Schultz.

Williams has a history in the retail sector and has worked for Starbucks since 2004, while being one of the public faces of the company over the course of 2021.

HEALTHCARE PROTECTION FOR THE YOUNG AGAINST COVID-19

DOCTORS’ OFFICES,

pharmacies and other medical providers are now able to administer COVID-19 vaccine shots to children as young as six months, an action signed off by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).

The CDC’s committee of vaccine experts unanimously voted for such recommended shots, supporting both Pfizer’s and Moderna’s COVID-19 jabs with vaccinations beginning this week.

The federal government has made an initial 10 million vaccine doses available to its local partners.

In under two years since the first shots became available for the vulnerable and elderly, almost everybody in the US is now eligible to receive a vaccination.

TECHNOLOGY CLASSIC BROWSER HITS RETIREMENT

FOLLOWING 27 years of use, Microsoft’s classic browser, Internet Explorer (IE), has been retired.

This follows the company’s statement in 2021 that it would be putting an end to IE and push users to its Edge browser instead.

The first version of IE was introduced in 1995, with Edge arriving decades later in 2015, providing users with a more modern browsing experience than IE, while solving issues that its predecessor had with speed, bugs and compatibility.

Currently, Google’s Chrome is the world’s most used browser, dominating with around a 65 percent share of the international market, followed by Apple’s Safari at approximately 19 percent, while Edge trails with a global use sitting at around four percent.

RETAIL A PRIME DAY TO BUY

AMAZON’S BIG annual Prime Day sale is returning on July 12th through to the 13th, as announced by the company.

The event is a huge revenue driver for the company, providing customers around the globe with competitive offers and discounts for all kinds of products, from homeware to clothing and technology, with Amazon Prime members gaining even earlier access to deals beginning on June 21st.

According to Adobe Analytics, total e-commerce sales during the two-day event exceeded $11 billion in 2021. Prime Day will begin at 3am Eastern Time on July 12th and continue for a 48-hour period in several countries, including Sweden and Poland for the first time.

ENERGY & UTILITIES A NEW FRONTIER FOR CLEAN NUCLEAR ENERGY

IDAHO NATIONAL Lab (INL) is exploring a new frontier of clean nuclear energy in the US.

One of the country’s preeminent nuclear research laboratories, the INL is working on a project aiming to build a tiny and relatively inexpensive micronuclear reactor with promising clean-energy potential.

If successful, this project could become a key part of the clean energy grid alongside those of wind and solar energy, with the microreactor itself manufactured in a factory, allowing for the production of hundreds a year.

A prototype is currently underway aimed to help the development of the industry.