Sunday 19 June 2022 07:19 AM Apple Store in Maryland votes to unionize in a first for the company in the US trends now

Apple Store employees in a Baltimore suburb became the tech giant's first retail workers to voted to unionize by a nearly 2-to-1 margin Saturday.

Staff at the store in Towson, Maryland, now joining a growing push across U.S. retail, service and tech industries to organize for greater labor protections.

The team at the Towson store voted 65-33 to seek entry into the International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers, the union's announcement said. 

They're seeking additional rights to those afforded by their existing contracts, with workers filmed cheering happily after the vote was counted.  

The Machinists and the Apple employees who wanted to join said they had sent Apple CEO Tim Cook notice last month that they were seeking to organize a union, and that their driving motivation was to seek 'rights we do not currently have.' 

'This is something we do not to go against or create conflict with our management,' they wrote.

An Apple spokesperson said by email the company had 'nothing to add at this time.'

Union organizing in a variety of fields has gained momentum recently after decades of decline in U.S. union membership. 

Organizers have worked to establish unions at companies including Amazon, Starbucks, outdoors retailer REI and Google parent company Alphabet.

Saturday's vote could not immediately be confirmed with the National Labor Relations Board, which would have to certify the outcome. An NLRB spokesperson referred initial queries about the vote to the board's regional office, which was closed late Saturday.

The vote in Towson comes after a group of employees called AppleCORE (Coalition of Organized Retail Employees) campaigned for unionization, demanding more input on

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