Apple’s Unionized Maryland Store Files Complaint Over Benefits

Apple Inc.’s unionized retail store in Maryland is filing a complaint with the National Labor Relations Board after it was excluded from some benefits, opening up a new front in the labor movement’s struggle with the world’s most valuable company.

In October, Apple announced a suite of perks for retail and corporate employees in the US, including new medical benefits, prepaying for a portion of tuition for outside education, and free access to a premium Coursera Inc. subscription.

But it withheld the benefits from the store in Towson, a suburb of Baltimore, indicating that the new perks would have to be negotiated as part of a collective bargaining agreement. That move drew Wednesday’s complaint, which was filed by the International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers, the labor group representing the store.

An Apple spokesman didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.

The Towson location was the first Apple store to unionize, though a second store — in Oklahoma City — voted to take a similar step last month. Employees at multiple other retail stores are quietly discussing the potential of unionization.

Denying new benefits to unionized stores isn’t unique to Apple. That approach has also been a flashpoint in the labor dispute at Starbucks Corp., where about 250 cafes have voted to unionize over the past year.

The case highlights the murky legal terrain that employers with a mixture of union and nonunion workers face when changing benefits. Federal labor law generally prohibits companies from altering job terms without bargaining, but the NLRB may consider it unlawful discrimination to exclude union workers from benefit changes provided to other employees.

The agency issued a complaint against Apple in October related to alleged discrimination against pro-union staff at a retail store in New York City.

Another wrinkle: While the Maryland store union notes that the new medical benefits have been withheld, that new perk is only available in certain states, including Connecticut, New York, Georgia, Washington and New Jersey.