Apple Towson Store Closure Sparks Federal Labor Complaint

Apple is closing its Towson Town Center store on June 20, and the roughly 90 employees there will have to reapply for jobs as outside candidates. Workers at the two other Apple stores closing this month, at Trumbull Mall in Connecticut and North County Mall near San Diego, are being offered transfers to other locations in their markets, Bloomberg Law reported. The union says the difference comes down to one thing: Towson was the first Apple retail store in the United States to unionize.

That allegation is now the basis of a federal labor complaint, a demand letter from Maryland's entire congressional delegation, and a contested dispute over what the union contract actually says. Apple says it is following the agreement. The union says Apple is misrepresenting it.

The IAM filed an unfair labor practice charge with the National Labor Relations Board in late April, accusing Apple of discriminating against Towson workers "in order to discourage them from exercising their rights," Bloomberg Law reported. Apple said it "strongly disagrees with the claims made" and looks forward to presenting its case to the NLRB, per CBS Baltimore. No procedural action from the labor board has been mentioned in any of the reporting reviewed for this article. The store closes in 18 days.

The transfer disparity at the Towson Apple store closure

The gap between Towson and the other two closing locations is not subtle. Employees at the Connecticut and California stores are being offered transfers within their markets. Towson employees are being told to reapply as outside candidates, competing against the general public for positions at a company where some have worked for years, Bloomberg Law reported. IAM International President Brian Bryant put it plainly: "While workers at non-union stores were offered transfers, Towson employees are being told to reapply like strangers to the company they've helped build."

Eric Brown is IAM Local 4538 vice president and currently on paternity leave. His son was born less than two weeks before he spoke to WBAL-TV last week; his other child is nearly three. "Not knowing if I'll have a job, health insurance, steady paycheck by the time I'm set to return from paternity leave has caused a great deal of stress," Brown said. "It has been hard showing up to work every day, knowing the doomsday clock has started."

The Towson store joined the International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers' Coalition of Organized Retail Employees in 2022, making it Apple's first unionized U.S. retail location, Patch reported. Apple's only other unionized U.S. store, in Oklahoma City, remains open, Bloomberg Law reported.

What Apple says justifies the difference and what the union disputes

Apple has cited mall conditions as the reason for all three closures. Towson Town Center sits at roughly 26% vacancy, with Banana Republic and Crate & Barrel among the retailers that have already left, Bloomberg Law reported. The company cited "the departure of several retailers and declining conditions" as its basis for the Towson decision, per CBS Baltimore. The dispute is over why workers at Towson, unlike workers at the other two stores, are not being offered transfers.

Apple's explanation for that gap is contractual. The company says the union agreement requires it to transfer or rehire Towson employees only if a new Apple store opens within 50 miles within 18 months of closure, WBAL-TV reported. Since no such location is planned, Apple says the contract provides for severance instead: four weeks of base pay plus an additional week per year of service, per Bloomberg Law. Apple's position is that the union bargained away broader transfer rights when it agreed to that language.

The union's legal counsel says that claim is false. IAM associate general counsel Bill Haller told Bloomberg Law that workers at the other stores "had the right to transfer into other stores in their same market area," and that Apple told Towson employees "you can't do that because your union bargained that right away. That is not true." Brown added a more specific challenge: Apple provides severance to all retail employees regardless of union status, which means framing the negotiated severance as a substitute for transfers misrepresents what was actually agreed to, per WBAL-TV. "There's nothing in our contract that says that we have to be terminated upon the store closing," Brown said.

None of the reporting reviewed for this article published or independently reviewed the contract text. Apple's interpretation and the union's interpretation are both asserted positions. The NLRB will be the next body to weigh them.

Rep. Johnny Olszewski noted separately that workers told him the store was performing well before the closure announcement. "These employees said this store is actually performing well. We have the traffic, we have the volume, we are successful," Olszewski said, per WBAL Radio. A store can generate strong traffic inside a deteriorating mall those things are not mutually exclusive. What that tension sharpens is the central question: why does a mall-conditions decision produce equal outcomes at two non-union stores and unequal outcomes at the one store that organized?

Maryland's congressional delegation escalated. Apple didn't respond.

In early May, Maryland's full congressional delegation sent a joint letter to Apple CEO Tim Cook and Senior Vice President John Ternus, Patch reported. Senators Angela Alsobrooks and Chris Van Hollen signed alongside Representatives Steny Hoyer, Glenn Ivey, Sarah Elfreth, Kweisi Mfume, Jamie Raskin, and Johnny Olszewski.

The letter asked Apple to explain what factors drove the closure, what alternatives the company considered, and what economic and workforce impact analysis it conducted before eliminating approximately 90 to 100 jobs. Lawmakers set a May 15 deadline and asked Apple to provide transfer opportunities or reconsider the closure outright, per Patch.

Apple did not respond by May 15. As of last week, Rep. Mfume told WBAL-TV that Apple had still not answered the letter at all. "I think Apple doesn't have a response," Mfume said.

The delegation also framed the closure as a community loss beyond the immediate job cuts. The congressional letter described the Towson location as providing residents and small businesses with critical in-person services technical support, repairs, and business solutions that many Baltimore County constituents depend on, per CBS Baltimore. The access problem is concrete: the nearest alternative Apple Store, in Columbia, Maryland, is a 30-minute drive or more than two hours by bus, Bloomberg Law reported. Towson is reachable without a car. Columbia is not.

Apple's public posture toward the delegation has matched its posture toward the union: it strongly disagrees with the claims, says it is following the negotiated agreement, and has not engaged with the specific questions lawmakers raised.

What remains unresolved when the Towson Apple store closes June 20

The core factual question whether the union contract actually eliminates Towson employees' transfer rights, or whether Apple told workers their union bargained those rights away when it did not will not be answered before June 20. Roughly 90 workers are making decisions about their next jobs, their health coverage, and their household finances without knowing whether the treatment they received was lawful. Any legal finding would likely come after the store closes and after workers have already had to make those employment and benefits decisions.

The 18-month right-of-first-refusal clock starts at closing, per Bloomberg Law. If Apple opens a store within 50 miles within that window, Towson workers would have priority. Apple has said it has no current plans to do so. That is the workers' situation: a conditional protection attached to a future Apple decision Apple says it hasn't made, running on a store that will no longer exist.

Workers also told Bloomberg Law they believe Apple's refusal to allow transfers is meant to send a signal to employees at other locations that organizing carries costs. Whether that turns out to be Apple's intent is precisely what the NLRB has been asked to determine.