Employees of the Apple store located in the legendary Grand Central station in New York have begun the process of forming a union, which would be a first for a store of the company in the United States, according to a website launched by these employees.
Under the banner “Fruit Stand Workers United”, this group has started collecting signatures: it must convince at least 30% of the store’s employees to officially request the organization of a vote approving or rejecting the creation of a trade union in the establishment.
“The best possible standard of living”
They are affiliated with Workers United, a banner under which several Starbucks cafes have organized in recent months, itself affiliated with the powerful service sector union SEIU.
“Grand Central is an extraordinary store, with unique working conditions that make a union necessary to ensure our team has the best possible standard of living, in what has proven to be an extraordinary time between the Covid-19 pandemic in prices and price inflation unprecedented for our generation,” the site reads.
Starbucks and Amazon as models
The group explains that it wants to protect the identity of the employees who launched the initiative for the time being. If successful, Apple would join Starbucks and Amazon on the list of multinationals facing a U.S. unionization drive.
According to washington postciting employees wishing to remain anonymous for fear of losing their jobs, employees of at least three other Apple stores in the country are in the process of organizing.
After the creation of a union in two Starbucks coffee shops in December in Buffalo, in the north of the country, employees of more than 160 establishments have since filed files for the organization of a vote. In New York, the employees of an Amazon warehouse created a surprise in early April by voting by majority in favor of the creation of a union within the warehouse, a first for the group in the United States.