By Emily Hallas | Washington Examiner
The Apple logo is illuminated at a store in the city center of Munich, Germany, Dec. 16, 2020. (AP Photo/Matthias Schrader, File)
The first unionized Apple store in Towson, Maryland, is set to make a historic collective bargaining contract with the Big Tech company.
On Friday evening, the International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers (IAM) Coalition of Organized Retail Employees (CORE), which represents the employees at the Towson Apple store, announced it had made a three-year deal with the tech company that will increase pay by an average of 10%, among other benefits.
“By reaching a tentative agreement with Apple, we are giving our members a voice in their futures and a strong first step toward further gains,” the union’s negotiating committee said in a statement. “Together, we can build on this success in store after store.”
The Towson Apple store, located in a Baltimore suburb, and a second Apple location in Oklahoma, are the tech companies’ only unionized sites in the U.S. The Oklahoma site voted to unionize in April but has not yet secured a contract with Apple. The Maryland location followed suit in June.
The Maryland site’s union deal comes after workers initially voted to join the union in June of 2022. The site’s roughly 85 workers began negotiations with Apple and the union over a year ago. In May, Towson employees voted to strike, saying the company was not moving fast enough.
“Despite persistent efforts to engage in constructive and meaningful dialogue, Apple has unfortunately not addressed our core concerns,” IAM District 4 Directing Business Representative Jay Wadleigh said ahead of the strike in a statement to AppleInsider.