According to a report from CNBC, employees at one of Apple’s retail locations in Atlanta became the first in the U.S. to file for a union election on Thursday.
The news comes less than a week after workers at Apple’s flagship store in New York City’s Grand Central Terminal announced they were preparing to unionize. On Tuesday, union organizers at the Grand Central Apple Store said they are seeking a minimum wage of $30 USD ($38 CAD) per hour for all workers at the location.
The U.S. National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) confirmed it received a petition for a union election from workers at an Apple Store in Atlanta. The proposed union would include 107 employees from the store in question.
“We are fortunate to have incredible retail team members and we deeply value everything they bring to Apple,” the Cupertino, California-based tech giant told CNBC.
It will be interesting to see how Apple responds to unionization efforts not only at its Atlanta store but at other retail locations across the U.S as well.
As we previously reported in February, there are whispers of Apple Store workers from several U.S. locations planning to unionize.
Apple isn’t the only one — talks of unionization have started making their way into the U.S. tech industry as a whole. Workers at one of Amazon’s warehouses in Staten Island, New York, made history earlier this month by becoming the first of the eCommerce giant’s U.S. facilities to vote in favour of unionizing.
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Retail store employees in the US making $30 an hour. Damn, that is ridiculous. Many of those so called Apple genius types don’t know their head from their @$$. Yet they want to make $30 USD an hour in a retail store, and what is worse is that they think they are entitled to that much. Plus it will be much harder to fire a union worker, as soon as they form a union. Unions served their purpose in the 1930-1960 timeframe, but today Unions stifle growth, and innovation, and put companies on a slow path for any growth. In many cases unions kill companies. Just look at ULA, they are dead, and don’t know it yet. Also many of the auto workers unions killed company innovation many years ago, and became stagnant, and without government assistance they would be dead. Look at Tesla is slaughtering all of the car companies when it comes to electric vehicles.