The IAM is one of the largest and most diverse industrial trade unions in North America
Apple store employees in Maryland have voted to form the tech giant's first union, joining a growing demand across U.S. retail, service, and tech industries to organize for greater workplace protections. The Apple retail workers in Towson, Maryland, voted 65-33 to seek entry into the International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers (IAM).Organizing Unions in a variety of fields has gained momentum recently after decades of decline in U.S. union membership. Organizers have worked to establish unions at companies including Amazon, Starbucks and Google parent company Alphabet.
The International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers and the Apple employees who wanted to join said they sent Apple CEO Tim Cook a notice last month that they were seeking to form a union. The statement said their driving motivation was to seek rights they do not currently have. Some current and former Apple workers last year began criticizing the company's working conditions online, using the hashtag #AppleToo. The IAM is one of the largest and most diverse industrial trade unions in North America, representing approximately 600,000 active and retired members in the aerospace, defense, airlines, railroad, transit, health care, automotive, and other industries. The Apple store unionization comes against a backdrop of other labor organizing unions nationwide.
