It’s another Thursday! I’m on with Mark Starling, John, and the First News 570 crew. This week’s top tech stories: Apple workers try to unionize at The Cube, Best Buy will haul your crap away and recycle it, and NASA is funding cheap Moon missions. Plus…more Musk. You can listen to Mark and I point and laugh while talking about the wild and crazy technology world every Thursday morning, LIVE at 6:43am Eastern by tuning into WWNC on the iHeartRadio app.
APPLE WORKERS AT THE CUBE SEEK UNIONIZATION
Workers at the Fruit Company’s Cube flagship store in New York has filed an intent to unionize. Staff workers at the store cite extraordinary working conditions due to COVID-19 and unprecedented consumer inflation as terms to demand more money. There are seeking a $30 per hour minimum wage for all workers at the store and more robust health and safety protocols because of COVID. Employees at 3 other Apple stores are attempting to unionize and this follows news of an Atlanta Apple Store trying to organize, successful unionization of Amazon workers, and a Starbucks store gaining union representation. The campaign is connected to Workers United an arm of Service Employees International Union.
BEST BUY WILL TAKE YOU TECH CRAP AND RECYCLE IT…FOR A FEE
Best Buy will come by your house and pick up two big items, and an unlimited number of small items and recycle them for $199. Big items include TVs and washing machines, and small items are small items. TotalTech subscribers who pay the $199 annual fee will receive a 20% discount. Best Buy already offers a trade-in-your-junk-for-new-stuff program when you buy something new. This is actually a needed service. It’s hard to get rid of electronics responsibly and renting a U-Haul can turn into a costly, time sucking experience.
NASA FUNDING NEW MOON MACHINES AHEAD OF ARTEMIS
I still don’t know if the book, or the mission inspire the other. NASA is returning humans to the Moon with its $7.5 billion annual spend on Project Artemis. While Artemis is geared towards building habitable conditions for humans on the Moon, they’ve been quietly financing cheaper science missions as part of the Commercial Lunar Payload Services program. The missions are designed to encourage commercial space flight by sending landers containing science experiments as well as payloads for Artemis up to space. Given that the program costs $250 million annually, NASA is getting this R&D done on the cheap.