Apple Store employees at the company’s Towson Town Center location in Maryland tuned to unionize. According to the Coalition of Organized Retail Employees, the group leading the union effort, workers voted “an overwhelming majority” to join the International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers (IAM). With the historic vote, the store is now on track to become Apple’s first unionized retail location in the United States.
Towson Town Center became the first Apple store in the US to hold a union ballot after workers at another Atlanta retail location withdrew their request to hold a union ballot last month. While Apple has not specifically opposed organizing its frontline workers, the company has been widely accused of using anti-union tactics. She reportedly hired the same anti-union law firm employed by Starbucks and subjected workers to so-called “prisoner meetings.” In Georgia, organizers canceled a union vote at the company’s Cumberland Mall location over allegations of intimidation. Ahead of today’s vote, AppleCore said it was organizing out of “a deep love for our role as workers within the company and a concern for the company itself.”
Apple declined to comment.
“I applaud the courage shown by CORE members at the Apple Store in Towson to achieve this historic victory,” said Robert Martinez Jr., President of IAM International, in a statement following the vote. “They made a huge sacrifice for the thousands of Apple employees across the country who had all eyes on this election. I ask Apple CEO Tim Cook to respect the election results and expedite an initial contract for Apple’s dedicated IAM CORE employees in Towson. This victory shows the growing demand for unions in Apple Stores and various industries in our country.”
In the immediate future, today’s vote should support ongoing union efforts at two Apple Stores in New York and New York Kentucky, but if recent history shows anything, it’s that a domino effect is not guaranteed. After the Amazon Labor Union led workers at Amazon’s JFK8 warehouse in Staten Island to a historic labor victory in April, the group failed to match the same result at a facility across the street a month later.
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