why a first strike in an American store could harm the image of the tech giant

Unionized employees of an Apple Store in Maryland voted on Saturday in favor of a possible strike, which would be the first in a brand of the technology group in the United States.

A historic first. In the United States, employees of one of the Apple brand stores voted on Saturday May 11 in favor of a possible strike. The hundred employees of this store, located in the state of Maryland, in the northwest of the country, have been negotiating for more than a year to obtain better working conditions.

And already, they had made history: these employees of this Apple Store, based in Towson, a town in the suburbs of Baltimore, had, in fact, already achieved a historic first in June 2022, by voting to equip themselves with a union, which had never happened in an American store of the iPhone manufacturer. They have since joined the ranks of IAM (which mainly represents technicians), and their branch is negotiating a new professional contract with Apple.

Saturday May 11, these same employees therefore took the next step by voting 98% in favor of a strike, again completely unprecedented for the giant Apple. For more than a year, these workers have been demanding wage increases or less unpredictable schedules. But the negotiations are slipping. Saturday’s votefollows more than a year of negotiations with Apple management which did not result in satisfactory solutions on essential issues for (our) members“, explained the union in a press release. The discussions notably failed on “work-life balance, unpredictable hours that disrupt personal life, and salaries that do not reflect the cost of living in the area“, according to IAM.

The historic strike could therefore take place before the resumption of discussions on May 21. Enough to scratch the smooth brand image cultivated by Apple. Because, after Amazon or Starbucks, the prestigious brand is also affected by the union wave born after the Covid-19 pandemic for better working conditions. The shock wave, however, has so far remained extremely limited: another Apple store in New Jersey also refused to unionize this weekend.

For comparison, in France, last September, nearly a quarter of employees in Apple stores went on strike on the day of the global launch of the iPhone 15, to demand a salary increase at least equal to inflation.