TOWSON — Apple store employees in a Baltimore suburb voted to unionize by a nearly 2-to-1 margin Saturday, a union said, joining a growing push across U.S. retail, service and tech industries to organize for greater workplace protections.
The Apple retail workers in Towson, Maryland, voted 65-33 to seek entry into the International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers, the union’s announcement said.
The vote could not immediately be confirmed with the National Labor Relations Board, which would have to certify the outcome. An NLRB spokesperson referred initial queries about the vote to the board’s regional office, which was closed late Saturday.
Apple declined to comment on Saturday’s development, company spokesperson Josh Lipton told The Associated Press by phone.
Union organizing in a variety of fields has gained momentum recently after decades of decline in U.S. union membership.
Organizers have worked to establish unions at companies including Amazon, Starbucks, Google parent company Alphabet and outdoors retailer REI.
The International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers and the Apple employees who wanted to join said they sent Apple CEO Tim Cook notice last month that they were seeking to form a union. The statement said their driving motivation was to seek “rights we do not currently have.”
It added that the workers recently organized in the Coalition of Organized Retail Employees, or CORE.
