Workers at Apple’s first unionized retail store began collectively bargaining with management on Wednesday, in a milestone moment not only for the iPhone company but for all of Big Tech.Risa Lieberwitz, a professor of labor and employment law at the Cornell University School of Industrial and Labor Relations, said “there’s a lot at stake” for Apple employees at this and other stores as the negotiations commence.“Other workers in the tech industry will be watching this.”The success of the Towson Apple store workers’ unionization bid came amid a broader wave of workplace organizing.Microsoft, by contrast, has publicly embraced its first union and said this month it looks “forward to engaging in good faith negotiations as we work towards a collective bargaining agreement.”Apple appears to be the first of those three companies to join the negotiating table with its unionized workers, but it comes after some tensions.Lieberwitz noted that negotiating a first contract for a union in the United States is “generally difficult” regardless of the industry, as many employers have historically resisted negotiating or have attempted to draw-out the process, as the longer a union goes without a contract, the longer a company will not have to agree to any of worker’s demands."