New York – 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 Labor Relations Board, the agency confirmed to AFP.
Regulators said that they must verify that at least 30% of the workers in the Apple store in Atlanta, capital of the southeastern state of Georgia, support the effort to unionize in order to clear the path for an official vote on the matter.
ALSO READ | Apple hits revenue record despite chip shortage
The CWA said more than 70% 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.
Labor organizing 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 organize under the banner “Fruit Stand Workers United”.
Like Starbucks and Amazon, Apple is currently facing a unionization drive in the United States.
ALSO READ | Apple puts India iPhone plant ‘on probation’ after mass food poisoning
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.
Follow African Insider on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram
Source: AFP
Picture: Pexels
For more African news, visit Africaninsider.com
