Apple closes unionized Maryland store, workers accuse retaliation

Apple closed its Towson Town Center store in Baltimore County on June 20, ending operations at the first Apple Store in the United States to unionize and turning a local shutdown into a national labor test. The company said the decision reflected declining conditions at the mall, but the workers’ union accused Apple of using a property dispute to punish organizing.

The Towson location had been a milestone for Apple labor relations since employees unionized in 2022. It later became one of the company’s most closely watched stores after IAM CORE, the Apple retail bargaining unit tied to the International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers, ratified a three-year contract in August 2024 that improved pay, work-life balance and job security. With the store now closed, union officials say Apple is treating Towson workers differently from employees at other closing locations and using the shutdown to weaken the gains they won at the bargaining table.

Apple said Towson was among three U.S. stores it planned to permanently close in June because of declining mall conditions, including retailer departures and lower traffic. But union organizers and Maryland officials argued that the explanation did not fit what they saw at Towson Town Center, where the Apple store had remained a major draw for shoppers. Workers held a public rally on May 27 to protest what they called discriminatory treatment during the transition, and they filed an unfair-labor-practice complaint with the National Labor Relations Board in late May or early June.

The political response was unusually broad. Members of Maryland’s congressional delegation sent Apple a letter on May 4 warning that the closure would affect nearly 100 workers and disrupt services for residents and small businesses across the Baltimore region. On June 1, 40 members of Congress sent a second letter to Apple chief executive Tim Cook and incoming hardware chief John Ternus, urging the company to protect employees and warning that the move could undercut workers’ rights. Baltimore Mayor Brandon Scott also backed the employees and the union.

The dispute now sits at the center of a larger question facing large employers across retail and tech-adjacent workplaces: whether a company can reverse a union victory through an operational decision that it says is purely commercial. Apple says the mall is fading; IAM says the closure is retaliation. In Towson, the answer will shape not only one store’s future, but the credibility of labor protections inside one of America’s most watched retail chains.