Apple retail workers vote to unionize a store in Maryland
Apple workers vote to unionize at Maryland store. The Apple logo adorns the facade of a retail store. More than 100 employees of an Apple store in a suburb of Baltimore voted to unionize by a nearly 2to1 margin on Saturday, June 18, 2022, joining a growing U.S push across tech, retail and service industries to organise for greater workplace protections.When Apple was consulted, it declined to comment on Saturday’s development company spokesperson Josh Lipton told the Associated Press by phone.
Workers at Apple’s Towson Town Center Store in Maryland have voted to unionize, with 65 yeses and 33 nos. Around 110 employees were eligible to vote in the election. One of the Apple retail stores located in the US to hold a union election, after organisers in Atlanta withdrew their petition to hold a union vote, which had been scheduled to take place in early May.
AppleCORE is an acronym for a coalition of organised Retail Employees, they organise the Towson Store. The workers have said they’ve received signatures from a majority of the employees that would likely be able to join a union, and are planning on filing with the National Labor Relations Board to schedule an election. The organisers wrote a letter saying their union is called AppleCORE and say they’re not trying to ” go against or create conflict with ” Apple management”. Rather the workers say they want to gain access to rights they currently don’t have. The employees said they want a voice when it comes to deciding their pay, hours, and Coronavirus safety. This was stated as of May 3 2022. Presently the workers said they want to expand their rights, specifically asking for a say when it comes to payments, work hours, and safety. AppleCore is associated with a larger union, the Int’l Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers.
Apple hasn’t welcomed the idea of the multiple unionization campaigns at its stores with open arms. The company hired anti-union lawyers; had a store and even corporate leadership tell employees why they shouldn’t join a union. The organisation in Atlanta even withdrew their petition to hold an election, saying that Apple’s behaviour made it impossible to have a fair vote, and the company has been accused of union-busting via captive audience meetings at two separate locations. For now, there are no union elections scheduled at US Apple retail stores. Though workers at Apple’s Grand Central store in New York are in the process of collecting the signatures needed to petition for a vote, in association with the communication workers of America union.
The Apple retail workers at the Grand Central Store in New York are unionizing with the communications workers of America (CWA) rather than workers united as originally planned. The move is part of a broad organising push at Apple retail stores across the country, where employees, in Maryland, Georgia, and Kentucky have announced union campaigns, should in case any of the stores are successful, it will represent the first union of Apple employees, in the United States.
The efforts were made to organize an AppleStore in Louisville Kentucky. As unionization efforts proceed at Apple stores across the country, a fourth location has begun forming a union. The Apple store at Oxmoor centre mall in Louisville, Kentuck, has announced it is organising a campaign. The reason for the uproar is that the employees are not satisfied with the low pay relative to Apple’s profits and feel that the metrics-driven culture has left them feeling disconnected from their work. Everything that happens in an Apple store is metrics-driven these days. It’s all about how many people can you connect with, how many people can you get AppleCORE paired with their transactions, Hedgpeth said. Everything is geared toward getting those numbers as high as possible about 30% of the store’s employees are in favour of forming a union being the legal threshold to hold a union election the group is waiting for at least 70% support before petitioning for a vote.
