Two Years Later, Apple Store Workers Are Still Fighting for a First Contract

“They’re master gaslighters,” a worker at the first store to unionize told More Perfect Union.

by Sebastian Ward and Jordan Zakarin, More Perfect Union

Workers at an Apple Store in Maryland are still in the early stages of negotiating a first contract with the tech giant, two full years after they became the company’s first retail store to unionize.

“It’s been, for me, exactly what I would've expected from Apple, knowing how Apple likes to talk to itself about their ideals and actions,” Billy Jarboe, an Apple worker in Towson and member of the union’s bargaining committee, told More Perfect Union. 

Apple has long positioned itself, to both its workforce and consumers, as distinct from other cold and heartless technology companies, with a progressive ethos that urges customers and employees alike to “think different.” Its advertising and marketing have emphasized this repeatedly over the years, including in a 2016 campaign called “Enriching Lives.” 

One line in particular resonates with the Towson workers trying to reconcile this image with the company’s behavior: “At our core, we believe our soul is our people.” But after two years of the company stalling contract negotiations, union-busting, and withholding benefits to union members, workers have been left with a different impression. 

“They’re master gaslighters,” Jarboe said.

The union suggests it is seeking very modest concessions in its first contract. The list of demands includes a 6 percent wage increase that rises with inflation and more flexible scheduling, something that the company has since extended to the rest of its retail employees. 

Last week, the two sides reached tentative agreements on some peripheral issues, such as time and attendance policy. On the most important points, however, workers say they are nowhere near a consensus.

The scheduling issue is particularly galling to the Towson workers, as the company has offered a version of what the union wants to every other Apple Store. The company’s lawyers say that such a change is “subject to bargaining” and thus cannot be implemented — a tactic reminiscent of Starbucks withholding new benefits from unionized workers, such as credit card tipping and raises, during the ongoing campaign at that company. (Starbucks has since begun offering some of those benefits to union workers, as bargaining between the two sides has resumed.) 

At the same time, even maintaining the same scheduling regime is creating hardship for Towson workers, who have been hindered by the mall where they work shortening its hours. The current scheduling policies are most burdensome on women and people with children, according to Chaya Barrett, a worker at the Towson store.

"We found that a lot of the women specifically are affected by the scheduling and availability, mostly women of color, including myself,” Barrett said. “And then most of them are part-time and are mothers, whether they're single mothers or they have partners."

Apple has also not given union workers access to the same health and safety standards. The workers in Towson proposed a health and safety committee that would ensure safe practices were followed in response to COVID concerns. Apple dismissed the idea, then implemented health and safety committees at other local retail stores—but not in Towson. 

While the National Labor Relations Board has established that it is against the law to deny new benefits to union members, the meager consequences are meaningless to the world's second-most valuable tech company, with a market cap of nearly $3 trillion. 

After Apple was charged with violating the National Labor Relations Act in 2023 for terminating its COVID-19 sick leave policy without negotiating with the union, Apple was only required to credit missing sick days to affected workers and compensate a single former employee for 19 hours of sick leave they took from the change of policy up until the settlement. At Apple’s World Trade Center store in New York City, a senior manager interrogated employees about union activity, and managers were directed by the store leader to confiscate union flyers from the break room on three occasions in a single day, an NLRB judge ruled last year; Apple was ordered to cease-and-desist interrogating workers. 

Moreover, employees across the country have been required to attend anti-union “captive audience” meetings, and a fake union, orchestrated by management, was established to squash unionization efforts at a store in Ohio.

Last year, Towson workers accused Apple of surface bargaining, a violation of the National Labor Relations Act. Surface bargaining involves clear and obvious stalling and time-wasting, including when a company feigns improvements by merely rephrasing existing policies. In this instance, Apple demanded 42 days to draft a counter-proposal, which workers alleged amounted to a rewording of their current policies. 

As a result, a mediator was hired to work with the two sides. While a modicum of progress has been made, workers have already authorized a strike if they can’t reach a deal. Workers at the Towson store don’t want to see that happen, though, and remain hopeful that Apple will engage in genuine negotiations. 

“What we really hope for is there not to be a work stoppage. We really want to just get a fair contract.” said Eric Brown, an employee at the Towson store. “We really want to get these ULP charges taken care of. We want Apple to do the right thing, and we hope that all comes from negotiating in good faith.”