Apple has accepted the vote made by its Maryland store workers to be the first U.S. employees to form a union and is ready to bargain with them.
Two-thirds of the employees at the Apple store in Towson, Maryland, organizing themselves as the Coalition of Organized Retail Employees (CORE), voted to join a union last week. This is the first of Apple’s roughly 270 U.S. outlets to unionize.
According to a source familiar with the matter, Apple will be participating in the bargaining process in “good faith.”
David Sullivan, the union’s eastern territory vice president, said in a statement that the members “look forward to bargaining with Apple and obtaining a strong first contract that makes positive changes for Apple workers and the customers they are proud to serve.”
Meanwhile, workers at an Apple store in Georgia who had also announced plans to vote on unionization later cancelled. Its union officers later filed a complaint claiming employee intimidation from the tech giant. Workers at two other Apple stores in New York are also planning to unionize.