Apple employees at a store in the Baltimore area voted to form a union, making it the first time in more than 270 company stores in the United States to join a program to sweep retailers, restaurants and technology companies. The result, announced Saturday by the National Labor Relations Board, provides the basis for a growing movement among Apple store employees who want a bigger voice on Covid-19 wages and policies. More than a dozen Apple store employees have expressed interest in uniting unions in recent months, union leaders said.
In the election, 65 employees at Apple’s Towson store, Md., Voted for union representation, known as the Apple Coalition of Organized Retail Employees, and 33 voted against. It will be part of the International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers, an industrial union representing more than 300,000 workers. “I applaud the courage shown by CORE members at Apple’s Towson store for achieving this historic victory,” Robert Martinez Jr., president of IAM International, said in a statement. “They have made great sacrifices for the thousands of Apple employees across the country, who were watching this election.”
Tyra Reeder, a technology expert who has worked at the Towson store for just over six months, said he was “happy” with the result and hoped the union would help increase workers’ compensation; stabilized store planning, which has been hampered by recent Covid-19 cases; and making it easier for employees to develop within the company. We love our jobs. We just want to see them do better” said Reeder. The result is a blow to Apple’s campaign to crack down on union drivers by arguing that it pays more than most retailers and offers a range of benefits, including health care and stock benefits. Last month, it raised the minimum wage for retail workers to $ 22 an hour, from $ 20, and also released a video of Deirdre O’Brien, who runs Apple stores, warning workers that joining a union could hurt the company’s business.
Apple declined to comment. Towson workers said in a video produced by the website More Perfect Union ahead of the union vote that Apple’s anti-union campaign was “bad” and included executives who told workers that unions had once barred black workers from joining their positions. A few weeks before the vote, Ms. O’Brien visited the store and thanked everyone for their efforts.
Recently, workers said their bosses began encouraging employees to voice their concerns at meetings and help them come up with solutions to their grievances. They also began attracting workers to individual meetings where management highlighted union costs, said Eric Brown, a Towson employee busy with union efforts. Earlier this month, store workers in Atlanta abandoned a planned election in which union support deteriorated after Apple’s move to raise wages and highlight its benefits. Union organizers in Atlanta have filed a lawsuit against the National Labor Relations Board, accusing Apple of requiring workers to listen to anti-union messages during binding meetings. The board had not yet decided whether the case was appropriate.
Ms. Reeder said Atlanta workers had helped prepare union supporters at the Towson store to ease the company’s speaking points. “We have received some information from the Atlanta store for the future,” he said, citing the company’s proposals that workers could lose some of their profits during contract negotiations with the union.”For that to happen, most of us have to agree,” added Ms. Reeder. “I do not think that any of us can afford to lose something we love so much, which benefits us.”At Starbucks, one of the companies where promoters have gained momentum, workers have praised the store-bought vote in Buffalo for helping encourage other stores to apply for union elections. Since that vote in December, more than 150 of the company’s nearly 9,000 corporate stores in the US have voted to form a union, according to the N.L.R.B. Shopkeepers who later reached out to Buffalo employees for advice on how to run the program.
“Employees get enthusiasm and courage when they work elsewhere,” said William Gould, a law professor at Stanford University and author of the book “For Labor to Build On: Wars, Depression and Pandemic.” “Many look to see: Can the workers succeed? Will they meet together? If the response is yes, it will encourage other employees to take the initiative to negotiate. ”Employees’ ability to win a contract may depend on the spread of the campaign to other stores. Union supporters at Starbucks say one of the company’s biggest sources is that they continue to win elections across the country. Amazon employees who helped assemble the Staten Island warehouse in April also said they would benefit if other warehouses could follow.
The company is challenging the outcome of the vote in front of the board of directors. With only one U.S. location which is legally affiliated with the union, the company may focus resources on opposing the union there. Apple employees are also organizing at the Central Terminal store in New York and at the store in Louisville, Ky. Those stores build support before they ask for an election. Organizers in Atlanta say they plan to renew their election in the future.
