Employees at an Apple store in Towson, Maryland voted Saturday to join a union, a significant achievement for organized labor. The Towson store is the first unionized Apple store in the U.S.
The vote is a defeat for Apple, which has opposed unionization efforts, and could energize workers at the company’s other retail locations to move forward with organizing.
The tally was 65 votes in favor and 33 opposed. Approximately 110 employees were eligible to vote to join the International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers. Voting started on Wednesday and ran through Saturday evening.
“We did it Towson! We won our union vote! Thanks to all who worked so hard and all who supported!” Towson organizers tweeted.
The National Labor Relations Board still needs to certify the votes. That could take around a week. Apple is required to bargain with the union over working conditions after the vote is certified, according to the NLRB.
The Towson store isn’t one of Apple’s so-called “flagship” stores in high-traffic areas in big cities. It’s a smaller location inside a mall.
The store received attention from Apple management as soon as workers announced plans to unionize. Apple’s head of retail and HR, Deirdre O’Brien, visited the location in May. A recorded message from O’Brien distributed to employees after union drives went public discouraged retail workers from joining unions, saying that doing so would make it harder for Apple to respond to employee concerns. She said unions are not committed to the company’s employees.
“To be clear, the decision to form a union is about us as workers gaining access to rights that we do not currently have,” Towson organizers wrote in a letter to Apple CEO Tim Cook.
Awesome, hopefully more of Apple’s employees can soon get the pay and working conditions every American worker deserves. Share the wealth Tim Cook !
LOL – they will close stores go online only before that happens. Do you think Unions really help? Do some history checking on Unions. What is needed is companies that don’t have to compete against third-world countries for salaries. Make it all in USA, tax shit out of anything coming from other countries. Nike employee makes shoes $.05 per hour, a union worker makes $20 an hour to make it – where do you think they will build the factory?
seriously –
What they don’t know is unions look out for themselves. They take your Union dues and donate towards politicians and Democrats.
Private industry can and do what they want. At any time, they can downsize for their sake of profit margin to shareholders.
Now which store may be downsized in the near future? Hmmmmm…
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