Apple store approves union, the first in the U.S.
Source: Washington Post
Apple workers in Towson, Md., voted to join a union Saturday, becoming the only of the tech giant’s U.S. retail stores to do so.The vote means workers at the store plan to join the International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers once a contract is ratified. 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 this 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. Workers in at least two other Apple stores are trying to organize, including at a store in New York and one in Atlanta, where workers became the first location to file documents with the National Labor Relations Board.
But the Communications Workers of America withdrew its request for an election there last month, saying in a statement that Apple’s “repeated violations of the National Labor Relations Act have made a free and fair election impossible.” At the time, the organizing group sent a message to workers at the store, saying it would reset and “continue this fight.”
Several companies, including Amazon and Apple, have been accused this year of “union busting” or employing tactics to discourage or intimidate workers from joining unions. (Amazon founder Jeff Bezos owns The Washington Post.) Apple Store employees in New York said this year that some workers were taken aside by managers and given a speech about the pitfalls of unionization there. In meetings, managers warned that unionization would mean the loss of benefits, such as the ability to do stints at Apple’s corporate headquarters.
Read more: https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2022/06/18/apple-union-vote/
Have to start somewhere and head off the inevitable taking it out on the employees when the corporate profits "miss (overly-inflated) expectations".
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So good to see this! Long overdue! 
