Apple Agrees to First U.S. Labor Agreement

New York
CNN
—

Apple Inc. and the union representing retail workers at its Towson, Maryland, store reached a temporary labor agreement late Friday, the first such agreement in the United States for not just an Apple store but any American workers at the tech giant.

Workers at an Apple store in Towson Vote to join the International Association of Machinists In June 2022, they have been seeking their first contract ever since. In May, They voted to allow the strike. Without setting a deadline.

The labor agreement, which needs to be ratified by a vote of 85 of the store’s rank-and-file members before it can go into effect, is a significant achievement. Other notable union organizing efforts, such as those by the Starbucks And AmazonSmartphone makers have yet to reach deals for these workers, even though workers at those companies voted to unionize long before workers at the Apple store in Maryland did.

There are few legal requirements to force a company to reach a labor agreement with a new union once that union is recognized by the National Labor Relations Board, the government body that oversees labor relations for most companies in the United States. But the process can be time-consuming, a recent study by Bloomberg Law The average time to reach the first contract was found to be 465 days, or approximately 15 months. In many cases, it may take longer. Academic Study 2023 It was found that 43% of new unions were still seeking their first contract two years after winning representation elections.

The Machinists union said the Apple Store deal includes scheduling improvements to better work-life balance, which was a key issue in the talks. The deal also includes a 10% pay raise over the three-year contract, as well as job protections such as guarantees for severance packages for laid-off workers and limits on contract employees.

“By reaching a tentative agreement with Apple, we are giving our members a voice in their future and a strong first step toward further gains,” the union said in a statement, adding that it will now seek to win the right to represent retail workers in other stores.

“Together, we can build on this success store by store and build on the strength that the Union has started here in Maryland,” the union said.

Apple has about 270 devices. stores in the United States, which are wholly owned by the company. Only one other store, in Oklahoma City, has Vote to form a unionand join another union, the Communications Workers of America. This store is not covered by this temporary labor deal.

An Apple spokesperson declined to comment to CNN about the tentative agreement this week, other than to point to a previous statement in which the company said, “We value our team members deeply and are proud to provide them with industry-leading compensation and exceptional benefits.”