World enews: Maryland Apple store union vote marks latest in labor drives

Apple store employees in a Baltimore suburb voted to unionize by a nearly 2-to-1 margin on Saturday. Here’s a look at other unionization drives of the past several months:

STARBUCKS

In December, a Starbucks store in Buffalo became the first to unionize at one of the coffee retailer’s company-owned U.S. stores. At least 150 of Starbucks’ 9,000 company-run U.S. stores have voted to unionize since then, according to the National Labor Relations Board, and at least 10 stores have rejected the union.

AMAZON

Amazon workers in Staten Island, New York, voted to unionize in April, marking the first successful U.S. organizing effort in the retail giant’s history. But a second Staten Island warehouse rejected a union bid about a month later.

ALPHABET

In January, a group of Google engineers and other workers announced they had formed a union, a rare foothold for the labor movement in the tech industry. The group formed the Alphabet Workers Union last year, which represents around 800 Google employees and is run by five people who are under 35. Alphabet is Google’s parent company.

REI

Workers at a New York City outpost of outdoor clothing and equipment seller REI voted overwhelmingly in March to join a union, the first REI store to do so. Seattle-based REI has more than 170 locations across 41 states and Washington, D.C.

ACTIVISION BLIZZARD

Video game workers at a division of game publisher Activision Blizzard voted to unionize in May, creating the first labor union at a large U.S. video game company after a vote affecting a small group of Wisconsin-based quality assurance testers. Call of Duty developer Raven Software, which is a subsidiary of Activision Blizzard, formed a union with 19 “yes” votes.