Apple’s first unionized workers say the company is holding up new gains

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 workers at the location. As the company’s first mall to unionize in the U.S. pushes for contract talks, workers say it’s making it harder for them to bargain for their benefits.

in letter addressed to Tim Cook, the bargaining committee says they were disappointed to learn the company would not be offering workers at the location some new health and education benefits that are being rolled out to other retail employees. The union also says Apple is spreading “misinformation” by saying workers will have to bargain for those benefits to be included in their contract.

“Missing is key context in this communication around the process of changing to a union shop and the fact that we can and will include these (and any new benefits) in our collective bargaining agreement proposal,” reads the letter, which you can read in full below down. However, the union also alleged that Apple made it difficult to bargain for these benefits by not sharing “any details” about them.

Apple did not respond to On the edgenumerous requests for comment on the union’s allegations.

The union, known as IAM CORE (CORE stands for Coalition of Organized Retail Employees and the organization is affiliated with the International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers), won the union election by a nearly two-to-one margin in June. Since then, workers elsewhere say the company continues to resist unionization efforts, with the Communications Workers of America filing complaints about Apple’s behavior in New York and Oklahoma.

It should be noted that reports of Apple withholding benefits came days before the Oklahoma store held union elections, which the IAM CORE letter said was a “measured” move. If it did, it didn’t work: Workers at the Penn Square store in Oklahoma City voted to unionize by a 56-32 vote.

Still, union campaigns are still ongoing at Apple stores in New York and Atlanta, where the threat of withholding could sway votes or even stop the election process altogether. The union campaigning in Atlanta canceled the vote in May, saying Apple made it impossible to hold a fair election.

Earlier this month, Bloomberg reported the news on Apple’s push to keep benefits in Towson and provided some details on exactly what workers could be missing out on; the list included a free subscription to Coursera, prepaid tuition at some colleges (compared to the reimbursement model Apple typically uses), and new health plan options. The publication quoted Harvard Law School professor Benjamin Sachs as saying there is nothing preventing the company from offering those benefits to unionized employees.

Wilma Liebman, president of the National Labor Relations Board, said Bloomberg that the company’s move to block the benefits could be a violation of labor law, saying it was “hard to see how they could come up with a legitimate reason for the time other than to influence the outcome of the election.” According to NLRB websiteemployers are also not allowed to “refuse to provide information requested by the union that is relevant to the bargaining process.”

As for the Maryland workers, they hope the letter will spark a conversation with company and store leaders. IAM President Robert Martinez Jr. promised in a press release that he would “sit down with Executive Director Cook at any time” to support union members in Towson.