‘People are stressed’: Apple workers set to begin first in-person union election

theguardian.com:

Workers at an Apple store in Towson, Maryland, are set to begin their in-person union election on 15 June and, if successful, the store would be the first to unionize at the US tech company.

Workers at the Maryland store – calling themselves the Coalition of Organized Retail Employees (AppleCore) – went public on 3 May with their intent to hold a union election, with the assistance of the International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers (IAM), shortly after an Apple store in Atlanta filed for a union election.

That store recently pulled its union election petition before voting began, citing Apple’s aggressive anti-union campaign launched in response to it. Another Apple store, in New York City, publicly announced a union organizing campaign in April and a Louisville, Kentucky, store announced their campaign in May, but neither has yet filed a petition for an election.

“The people who we have the biggest relationship with, our store leaders, almost have little to no say in what affects the workers,” said Onye Igwulu, a 24-year-old employee at the Apple store in Towson for about one year. “We’re standing up to make a better life for ourselves and our family that we feel we deserve and I think all workers deserve. We love our work extremely, we just want to have a say in the things that affect us.”

Eric Brown, an employee at Apple for two years, explained that morale dropped through the pandemic, with policies and Covid-19 protections changing unilaterally without input or consultation from workers, which contributed to workers seeking to unionize.

“We’re trying to make changes to actually have a right to a say in our workplace conditions, in how we’re treated, with pay, and policy changes,” said Brown. “There have