Introduction

It’s hard to think of a company in modern times more lauded than Apple as a symbol of American ingenuity and innovation, or a company that has reached the same zenith financially or for cult-like adoration of its products. In many ways, Apple is one of America’s most important exports, cultural signifiers, and bellwethers for employment standards in tech and retail jobs, which make up the majority of its 164,000-person workforce. [1]

For all its seemingly forward-thinking inventiveness, Apple has left behind its retail workforce in the Company’s race to a $3 trillion valuation. [2] Apple retail workers across the country are organizing with the Communications Workers of America (CWA) and other unions to improve wages, working conditions, and equity outcomes at the world’s richest company. Apple has responded by withholding benefits from unionized stores, conducting coercive captive audience meetings, and hiring the same anti-union law firm as its brand-conscious cousin Starbucks, which is also facing a reckoning as thousands [3] of its frontline retail workers are standing up and saying we deserve better. [4]