Organizers at Apple’s Towson Town Center store in Maryland say the company isn’t telling the whole truth when it comes to withholding benefits from on-site workers. As the company’s first retail site to unionize in the United States pushes to negotiate a contract, workers say they are finding it difficult to negotiate their benefits.
In a letter to Tim Cook, the bargaining committee says it is disappointed to learn that the company will not offer workers at the location new health and education benefits that are extended to other employees at the retail business. The union also says Apple spread “misinformation” saying workers would have to negotiate to have these benefits included in their contract.
“Apple management has not yet provided our union with details of the new benefits”
“Critical context is missing from this communication around the process of change within a unionized store and the fact that we can, and we will include these (along with any new benefits) in our collective bargaining proposal,” the company said. letter, which you can read in full below. However, the union also claims that Apple made it difficult to negotiate these benefits by not sharing “any details” about them.
Apple did not respond to The edge‘s multiple requests for comment on the union’s accusations.
The union, known as IAM CORE (CORE stands for Coalition of Organized Retail Employees, and the organization is in partnership with the International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers), won its union election by a margin of almost two to one in June. Since then, workers at other sites say the company has continued to oppose organizing efforts, with the Communications Workers of America filing complaints about Apple’s behavior in New York and Oklahoma.
Notably, reports of Apple’s withholding benefits came out days before the Oklahoma store was due to hold its union election, which the IAM CORE letter said was a “calculated” decision. If so, it didn’t work: workers at the Penn Square store in Oklahoma City voted to unionize by a vote of 56 to 32.
Yet there are still labor campaigns underway at Apple stores in New York and Atlanta, where the threat of withheld benefits could sway votes or even stall the process of holding an election altogether. The union involved in the campaign in Atlanta canceled the vote in May, saying Apple had made it impossible to hold a fair election.
Earlier this month, Bloomberg broke news of Apple’s intention to suspend benefits at Towson and provided details on exactly what workers might miss; the list included a free Coursera subscription, prepaid tuition at some colleges (vs. the reimbursement model Apple usually uses), and new healthcare plan options. The publication quoted Harvard Law School professor Benjamin Sachs as saying there was nothing stopping the company from offering these benefits to unionized employees.
Wilma Liebman, president of the National Labor Relations Board, said Bloomberg that the company’s decision to block benefits could be a violation of labor law, saying it was ‘difficult to see how they could find any legitimate reason at the moment other than influencing the outcome of the election’ . According to the NLRB website, employers are also not allowed to “refuse to provide information requested by the union that is relevant to the bargaining process.”
As for workers in Maryland, they hope the letter will spark a conversation with company and store executives. IAM President Robert Martinez Jr. promised in a press release that he would “sit down with CEO Cook at all times” to support union members at Towson.
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