Apple store workers in US seek vote to form union

WORKERS at an Apple store in Atlanta on Wednesday called for a vote on whether to form the tech giant’s first union in the United States, labor regulators said. A group of employees backed by the communication industry’s CWA union formed an “Apple Retail Union” and filed an application with the National Labour Relations Board, the agency confirmed to AFP. Regulators said that they must verify that at least 30 per cent of the workers in the Apple store in Atlanta, capital of the south-eastern state of Georgia, support the effort to unionise in order to clear the path for an official vote on the matter. The CWA said more than 70 per cent of the hundred of so employees involved have signed union cards. If the vote takes place and the effort wins, it would be the first union formed at one of Apple’s iconic retail outlets in the United States. Labour organising initiatives have been launched in other Apple stores, such as the one located in Grand Central Station in New York where employees have started to organise under the banner “Fruit Stand Workers United.”

Like Starbucks and Amazon, Apple is currently facing a unionisation drive in the United States. After a union was formed at two Starbucks coffee shops in December in the northern city of Buffalo, employees at more than 160 of the chain’s locations have filed for similar votes. At Amazon, employees at a New York warehouse surprised everyone in early April by voting overwhelmingly to form a union, a first for the online retail colossus in the United States. AFP