Apple on Thursday announced that it will be permanently closing three of its retail stores in the U.S. in June, and one of them was unionized. Apple Towson Town Center in Maryland Apple Towson Town Center in Towson, Maryland is one of the three stores being shuttered, with no replacement store planned. The staff at this location became Apple's first retail employees in the U.S. to unionize in 2022.
Unions need to have regional authority. If one store is closed, the union will automatically be instantiated in any other store that opens in the area. If you don’t like unions that much, then withdraw completely and lose that revenue.
Unions are funded by employee dues. Its fairly easy to work around that idea by simply closing a store and waiting until the regional union quickly folds from lack of funding.
What unions really need is to be large enough to weather an individual store being closed and losing those employee dues. Unionizing one location or an insignificant amount of locations is not effective. Collective bargaining doesnt work when the collective that is bargaining hardly has numbers.
Thats why in traditional trades you see locals of electrical workers, plumbers, etc. You dont see “Bob’s Plumbing Co. Workers Union”. Its not effective. The same is true for general service jobs. Starbucks workers union or Apple employees union is too narrow of a segment to meaningfully survive. Las Vegas has successful hospitality unions because there are a shitload of hotels, and therefore a shitload of hotel workers banded together. If you just had “MGM employees union” or “Holiday Inn Worker’s United” they would have folded like a house of cards
Regionality is great when the union has a wide tent. Without a wide tent its not a solution. Local 5XX whatever have you of a specific trade is a union that works because no matter where that union employee goes for work they are backed by the union
Sounds like a good argument for a “retail workers union”