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March 29, 2024

Apple employees at a Baltimore-area store have voted to unionize, making it the first of the company’s more than 270 U.S. stores, joining a labor-organizing trend sweeping retailers, restaurants and tech companies.

The results announced Saturday by the National Labor Relations Board give a foothold to a budding movement among Apple retail employees who want a greater say in wages and Covid-19 policies. Union leaders say more than two dozen Apple Store employees have expressed interest in joining the union in recent months.

In the election, 65 employees at the Apple Store in Towson, Maryland, voted in favor of being represented by a union, the Organized Apple Alliance of Retail Employees, while 33 voted against. It will become part of the International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers, an industrial union representing more than 300,000 employees.

“I applaud the courage shown by CORE members at the Towson Apple Store to achieve this historic victory,” IAM International president Robert Martinez Jr. said in a statement. “They made a huge sacrifice for the thousands of Apple employees across the country who were watching this election.

The result is a blow to Apple’s campaign to weaken unions, saying it pays more than many retailers and offers a range of benefits, including health care and stock grants. Last month, it raised starting wages for retail employees to $22 an hour from $20 and released a video of Deirdre O’Brien, who leads Apple’s retail operations, warning employees that unionizing could hurt the company’s business.

Towson employees said in a video before the union vote that Apple’s anti-union campaign there was “nasty,” including management telling workers the union had barred black employees from joining them. Ms O’Brien visited the store a few weeks before the vote to thank everyone for their hard work.

Before long, employees said their managers began encouraging employees to voice their concerns in meetings and helping them come up with solutions to address their grievances. Eric Brown, a Towson employee who is actively involved with the union, said they also started putting employees in one-on-one meetings where managers highlighted the cost of union dues.

The vote evened the score between Apple and the organizers. Earlier this month, employees at an Atlanta store dropped a planned election as support for the union failed after Apple took steps to raise wages and emphasize the benefits it offered. Union organizers in Atlanta have filed a formal complaint with the National Labor Relations Board, alleging that Apple requires workers to hear anti-union messages during mandatory meetings. The board has not yet determined whether the allegation has merit.

Starbucks is one of the companies where organizers have gained the most momentum, with employees arguing that a vote organized at one Buffalo store could help spur other stores to apply for union elections. More than 150 of the company’s roughly 9,000 company-owned stores in the U.S. have voted to unionize since the vote last December, according to the NLRB.

“If workers elsewhere have the upper hand, workers gain interest and courage,” said William Gould, a Stanford law professor and author of Putting Labor on Foot: Wars, Depressions, and Pandemics. . “A lot of people are looking: Can workers succeed? Will they band together? If the answer is yes, it will encourage other workers to take a step towards collective bargaining.”

Apple employees also organized at a Grand Central Terminal store in New York and a store in Louisville, Kentucky. The stores are rallying support ahead of calling for elections. Organisers in Atlanta said they plan to resume elections in the future.



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