NEW YORK (Reuters) -Apple Inc retail employees voted to form a union at an Oklahoma location, the U.S. National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) said, making it the tech giant’s second U.S. store to arrange.
Ninety-five employees on the Apple Penn Square store in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma secured a majority, with 56 votes in support of joining the Communications Staff of America Union (CWA), in keeping with a tally by the NLRB.
The move to arrange spread to latest industries throughout the pandemic, sparked by concerns about workplace safety. Momentum has continued at corporations including Amazon.com Inc and Starbucks Corp and others.
The employees who call themselves the Penn Square Labor Alliance sought to hitch the CWA in an effort to address workplace concerns including fair compensation, profession development and COVID-19 health and safety concerns.
“The thing that actually did it for us was seeing our peers at other Apple stores, our peers with Starbucks and other corporations begin to demand higher for themselves,” said Kevin Herrera, a part-time Apple specialist and certainly one of the lead organizers on the Oklahoma City location.
The CWA filed in early October an unfair labor practice charge alleging that Apple managers on the Oklahoma location informed employees that support for the union was futile, threatened to withhold advantages from employees supporting the union, engaged in illegal surveillance and interrogated employees, in keeping with a press release from the CWA.
Apple declined to comment on the allegations.
“We imagine the open, direct and collaborative relationship now we have with our valued team members is one of the best option to provide a wonderful experience for our customers, and for our teams,” Apple said in an announcement.
“We’re proud to supply our team members with strong compensation and exceptional advantages. Since 2018, we’ve increased our starting rates within the US by 45% and we’ve made many significant enhancements to our industry-leading advantages, including latest educational and family support programs,” the corporate added.
Apple employees in near Baltimore, Maryland voted in June to hitch the International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Staff.
(Reporting by Doyinsola Oladipo in Latest York and Abinaya Vijayaraghavan and Rhea Binoy in Bengaluru; Editing by Michael Perry)
Copyright 2022 Thomson Reuters.
