Apple and unions

Apple workers around the globe have been involved in organizing since the 1990s. Apple unions are made up of retail, corporate, and outsourced workers. Apple employees have joined trade unions and or formed works councils in Australia, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, the United Kingdom and the United States.

The majority of industrial labor disputes (including union recognition) involving Apple occur indirectly through its suppliers and contractors, notably Foxconn plants in China, and, to a lesser extent, in Brazil and India.

In 2021, Apple Together, a solidarity union, sought to bring together the company's global worker organizations. In the 2020s, a surge in new organizing took place in Australia, United Kingdom and the United States.

Industrial composition

Apple was founded in 1976, and has become one of the most valuable corporations in the world, being valued over $1 trillion in 2018, and in 2020 becoming the first American company to be valued over $2 trillion. Since the 1980s, Apple, like other Silicon Valley companies, shifted assembly operations and other manufacturing services from the United States to countries with lower labor, overhead costs and flexible scaling. Apple directly employs 147,000 workers including 25,000 corporate employees in Apple Park and across Silicon Valley. The vast majority of its employees work at 500 retail Apple stores globally.