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Apple workers in the Baltimore area voted to join a union Saturday, becoming the first of the tech giant’s U.S. retail stores to do so.
The vote means workers at the Towson, Md., store plan to join the International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers (IAM) once a contract is ratified. Saturday evening’s initial tally was 65-33, and the official count was pending.
Last month, the workers and IAM sent a letter to Apple CEO Tim Cook of their intent to organize as the Coalition of Organized Retail Employees — or AppleCore for short.
This vote is part of an organizing wave sweeping the nation as workers increasingly band together to demand higher pay, better benefits and more negotiating leverage with their employers during the pandemic. In New York, the first Amazon warehouse voted to form a union in the spring. Dozens of Starbucks stores across the country have unionized, and labor movements have pushed into outdoor retailer REI and video game maker Raven Software.
Billy Jarboe, a Towson Apple employee and union organizer, said that Apple’s campaign to undermine the organizing effort “definitely shook people” but that most union backers stayed strong.
“It just feels good to go into a new era of this kind of work, hopefully it creates a spark [and] the other stores can use this momentum,” Jarboe said in a text after the vote concluded Saturday.
The vote means workers at the Towson, Md., store plan to join the International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers (IAM) once a contract is ratified. Saturday evening’s initial tally was 65-33, and the official count was pending.
Last month, the workers and IAM sent a letter to Apple CEO Tim Cook of their intent to organize as the Coalition of Organized Retail Employees — or AppleCore for short.
This vote is part of an organizing wave sweeping the nation as workers increasingly band together to demand higher pay, better benefits and more negotiating leverage with their employers during the pandemic. In New York, the first Amazon warehouse voted to form a union in the spring. Dozens of Starbucks stores across the country have unionized, and labor movements have pushed into outdoor retailer REI and video game maker Raven Software.
Billy Jarboe, a Towson Apple employee and union organizer, said that Apple’s campaign to undermine the organizing effort “definitely shook people” but that most union backers stayed strong.
“It just feels good to go into a new era of this kind of work, hopefully it creates a spark [and] the other stores can use this momentum,” Jarboe said in a text after the vote concluded Saturday.
