Apple Workers in Maryland Face Hurdles After Voting to Unionize –

TOWSON, Md. (AP) – The historic vote of Apple store employees in Maryland to join the union – the first tech giant – is an important step in a long process that, according to labor experts, is highly competitive against workers who in favor of their employers. .

It is still unclear whether the latest wave of unions represents a broader change in employment in the United States. But experts say the current shortage of workers for hourly, low-paying jobs means employees have more power than ever before, especially when unemployment is low.

“Losing one of these jobs isn’t a big deal, because you’re going to find another hard job,” said Ruth Milkman, a labor scientist at New York City University.

The question is, what is happening now?

Apple dealers in Towson, Maryland, voted 65-33 to seek membership in the International Association of Mechanical and Aeronautical Engineers, the union said in a statement. The National Council for Employment Relations must now confirm the result. The speaker passed the first questions about the vote to the regional council office, which closed late Saturday. The board did not immediately respond to a request for comment from the Associated Press on Sunday.

After the vote is verified, the union and Apple can begin negotiating a contract.

“Labor law is a long process in the United States. So the fact that a store is negotiating or choosing a union does not mean that there is negotiation in the workplace. “And we know from recent history that in many of these situations, the parties can’t agree on a preliminary contract,” Michael Duff, a former NLRB attorney and professor at Wyoming Law College, said Sunday.

“In the United States, an employer has so many rights to revoke recognition only at the end of the process. “The employer can show that he no longer supports most of those working in the negotiation department,” Dafma added.

Even though the union has been certified, the company has some legal maneuvers to combat it, Duff said. For example, Apple may claim that it does not believe that the NLRB Certified Transaction Unit is an associated transaction unit. And he refused to compromise with the union.

“If that happens, everyone goes to court and it can take a year or two before you’re asked if the employer is required to deal with the union,” Daphne added.

Labor experts say employers often delay the negotiation process to gain momentum from union campaigns. It’s also possible that Apple – or any other company – will restructure their business so that United Workers can be re -classified as independent contractors rather than employees, where a union vote is unlikely, Duff said.

Apple declined to comment on the development on Saturday, company spokesman Josh Lipton told The Associated Press over the phone. Reached again on Sunday, Apple did not comment.

The successful vote serves to organize workers nationwide, said John Logan, director of employment and employment research at San Francisco State University.

“Workers are already organizing in other Apple stores, but it shows them that the company is invincible,” he said.

The famous Apple brand will also help you.

“The public has a direct relationship with companies like Apple, so winning the first union will lead to big traditional media and social media,” Logan said. “Young workers learn about union activism through this cover and some are likely to be inspired to try to organize their work.

Although U.S. labor law has been enacted against workers, Duff said he thinks “if the U.S. wakes up the labor movement, it will.”

The union organization has gained momentum in various fields after the recent decade of declining membership in the United States. The organizers worked to create mergers with companies including Amazon, Starbucks, the main company Google Alphabet, and Outer Retail REI.

The International Association of Mechanical Engineers and Space Workers and Apple employees who want to join said they sent a message to Apple CEO Tim Cook last month saying they were trying to form a union. The statement stated that their motivation was “to seek rights that we do not currently have”. He added that workers have recently been organized into a Coalition of Organized Retailers, or CORE.

“Congratulations on the courage shown by CORE members at this Towson Apple Store to achieve this historic achievement,” Robert Martinez Jr., President of IAM International, said in a statement. “They have made great sacrifices for the thousands of Apple employees across the country who have strictly followed the election.

Martinez asked Apple to respect the election results and give union staff a quick effort to get a contract for Towson’s headquarters.

IAM has established itself as one of the largest and most diverse industry unions in North America, with approximately 600,000 active and retired members in the aviation, defense, aviation, railroad, transportation, healthcare, automotive and other industries. . Logan said Apple’s success shows that the established labor movement “can adapt to the needs of a self -confident, independent group of workers you’ll find in Apple stores.”

Voting for the Apple Store union is taking place along with other efforts to organize work across the country, some of which have been rejected.

Amazon Warehouse Workers in New York Voted on the merger in April, the first successful U.S. organization effort in the retail giant’s history. However, workers at another Amazon warehouse on Staten Island completely rejected the Union’s offer last month. Meanwhile, Starbucks workers Dozens of American stores In recent months it voted to join after entering two coffee chains Buffalo, New York, At the end of last year it voted for the union.

Many union efforts have brought young workers between the ages of 20 and 20 into the teens. Developed by Google Alphabet Workers Union’s team of engineers and other staff Last year, it represented approximately 800 Google employees and was managed by five people under the age of 35.

“It’s a generation with a really different worldview than we’ve seen in many generations,” CUNY’s Milkman said. “They believe.”