Seeking Foothold in Apple Empire, Unions Shift Strategy

The union supporters trying to organize workers at an Apple Inc. retail store for the first time aren’t calling for a revolution. They’re not bashing CEO Tim Cook. They’re not picketing in the streets.

Instead, they’ve reined in the rhetoric used in organizing efforts at Starbucks Corp. and Amazon.com Inc. in favor of a cool-headed, geeky pitch that’s careful not to offend workers’ devotion to the Apple brand and its products. The first major test will come Saturday, when ballots in a campaign headed by the International Association of Machinists are counted at Apple’s Towson, Md., store.

The approach has ...