Atlanta Apple Store Pulls Plans for Union Vote

Atlanta’s Apple Cumberland Mall - Image via Apple

31 MAY 2022 - It looks like Apple Retail will not be facing its first union vote this week. Plans had been for Atlanta’s Apple Cumberland Mall to be the first Apple location to vote on whether to form a union. That was supposed to run this Thursday 2 June through Saturday 4 June. Now, a piece from CNBC says, “the union trying to organize the retail workers withdrew its request for an election.” According to the report:

The union, Communications Workers of America, alleged in a statement that Apple has violated labor laws and made a fair election impossible. In addition, CWA said that there are rising numbers of Covid cases at the store, which could affect the vote due to workers’ health concerns.

In a statement, CWA said:

An overwhelming majority of the workers at the Cumberland Mall Store announced that they were forming a union in April and requested recognition from the company… Since then, Apple has conducted a systematic, sophisticated campaign to intimidate them and interfere with their right to form a union,” a “behavior [that] violates U.S. law, the principles of Apple’s credo and vendor code of conduct, and international human rights standards.

While Apple has not formally come out against union moves, it pretty much has. Reports have had the Cupertino-company hiring an anti-union law firm and raising alleged concerns around unionization at start-of-shift meetings. A lot of those concerns were reiterated last week in a video message to employees from Apple Senior VP of Retail + People, Deirdre O’Brien. Not that it’s all been negative. Toward the end of the week last week, Apple let workers know that they were getting raises by as soon as July. The Wall Street Journal reported that:

Starting pay for hourly workers in the U.S. will rise to $22 an hour, or higher based upon the market, a 45% increase from 2018. Starting salaries in the U.S. are also expected to increase.

That’s happening about three-months earlier than usual, according to last week’s report. While organizers in the Atlanta store are not happy with how events have gone over the last few weeks, they do think the pay increases are tied to the movement they started. CNBC had the organizers saying:

Thanks to what we started here in Atlanta, Apple will be giving all employees in all stores an unplanned raise. This is because of us.