Apple employees at a store in Towson, Maryland voted Saturday to join a union, becoming the first retail employees of the tech giant to unionize in the United States.
More than 100 employees in the Baltimore-area voted 65-33 on Saturday to join the International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers (IAM), the union said.
The vote is considered a defeat for the tech giant, which has opposed unionization efforts, and could motivate employees at the company’s other retail locations to move forward with organizing.
The local workers, forming the Coalition of Organized Retail Employees (Core), "have the support of a solid majority of our coworkers", they said in a statement.
IAM and the Apple workers who wanted to join said they had sent a letter addressed to Apple's CEO, Tim Cook, in May clarifying that they were seeking to organize a union that would let them access rights they do not currently have.
In response to that letter, Apple’s head of retail and HR, Deirdre O’Brien, visited the location and distributed a recorded message 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. O’Brien said unions are not committed to the company’s employees.
The IAM international president, Robert Martinez Jr, said in the statement: "I applaud the courage displayed by Core members at the Apple store in Towson for achieving this historic victory. They made a huge sacrifice for thousands of Apple employees across the nation who had all eyes on this election."
Martinez also urged Apple to respect the election results and to let the unionizing employees fast-track efforts to secure a contract at the Baltimore location.
According to the National Labor Relations Board, Apple is required to bargain with the union over working conditions after the vote is certified.
It's worth noting that the Towson store isn’t considered one of Apple’s so-called "flagship" stores in high-traffic areas in big cities.
