CORPORATIONS TURN TO LAWLESSNESS TO FIGHT LABOR UNIONS
By Sonali Kolhatkar
Workers at companies like Apple and Starbucks face armies of unionbusting lawyers advising employers to repeatedly violate labor laws .
Workers in Towson , Maryland , have earned the distinction of becoming the first Apple retail workers in the nation to vote to strike over failed union negotiations with their employer . The approximately 100 Apple workers were also the first in the nation to successfully form a union . They did so in 2022 , as the Coalition of Organized Retail Employees ( CORE ), joining the International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers ( IAM ). Two-thirds of the store ’ s workers voted to join the union , a resounding success at a company that has long staved off union activity .
Apple could have embraced the Towson store union , respecting the legal right of its workers to bargain collectively for their rights . Instead , the company chose a depressingly familiar path of using its economic power to break labor laws and resist the union at all costs .
Among Apple ’ s earliest tactics , a bold one even by corporate standards , was to offer all but the Towson store workers new educational and medical perks , saying that the nascent union would have to negotiate for those perks while nonunion workers would be able to enjoy them immediately . The IAM CORE members claimed it was a “ calculated ” move by Apple , timed just ahead of a second retail union vote at a store in Penn Square , Oklahoma , ostensibly as a warning to those workers , and any others considering union drives , that they could lose out . The National Labor Relations Board , which under President Joe Biden has tended to adhere to its mandate by actually protecting workers more often than not , accused the company of violating the workers ’ labor rights . Luckily , the bid failed and a majority of Penn Square ’ s Apple workers chose to unionize .