More than 100 employees at an Apple store in a Baltimore suburb voted to unionize by a margin of nearly 2-1 on Saturday, joining a growing U.S. push in the tech, retail and service industries to organize for jobs. Greater workplace protections, a union announced.
Workers in Towson, Maryland, voted by a margin of 65 to 33 in favor of joining the International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers (IAM), the union said. The Associated Press has not been able to confirm the result of the vote with the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB), which must certify the result, and did not respond to messages at the moment.
The union and employees trying to organize said they sent Apple CEO Tim Cook a notice last month that they were looking to organize a union. The statement noted that his main motivation was to seek “rights that we currently do not have.”
“I applaud the courage shown by CORE members at the Towson Apple Store in achieving this historic victory,” IAM International President Robert Martinez Jr. said in the statement. “They made a huge sacrifice for thousands of Apple employees across the country who had all eyes on this election.”
Apple spokesman Josh Lipton told the AP by phone that the company declined to comment on Saturday’s vote.
Messages sent to an NLRB spokeswoman went unanswered as of Saturday night.
Martinez called on Apple to respect the election results and allow unionized employees to expedite the process to secure a contract at the Towson store.
“This victory shows the growing demand for unions at Apple Stores and in different industries across our country,” the statement read.
The IAM bills itself as one of the largest and most diverse industrial unions in North America, representing approximately 600,000 active and retired members in the aerospace, defense, airline, rail, transit, health care, automotive and others.
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