A national labour company in the U.S is looking into charges filed against Apple Inc (NASDAQ: AAPL) by its employees. The two charges were filed on August 26 and September 1 and are being reviewed by the National Labor Relation’s Board office in Oakland, California. When asked about its investigation, the agency declined to comment.
In a statement given by Apple, the company states that it takes its employees’ concerns seriously and will thoroughly investigate the claims. They cited employee privacy and declined to discuss the specifics of the investigation.
Details of the charges filed
A senior engineering program manager at Apple, Ashley Gjovik, said that she filed a charge on August 26. Her complaints included harassment by a manager, an increase in unfavourable jobs, reduction of responsibilities, among others.
When Apple started to investigate her complaints, Gjovik claims that her managers reassigned her work and gave her undesirable tasks. She was put on leave at the beginning of August.
Cher Scarlett filed the September 1 charge. Scarlett is an Apple Software engineer who says the company consistently stopped discussions of pay among employees. In the documents she sent the labour agency, Scarlett wrote that Apple would engage in suppression and coercion, allowing abuse and harassment of employees who organised protected concerted activity.
Scarlet claims that in April, Apple employees had started a pay equity survey but were blocked by the company who cited privacy concerns. Apple then stopped subsequent surveys, including one that wanted to discuss the privacy concern. After the company denied requests by their employees to start a Slack channel where they could discuss pay equity in August, Scarlett decided to file a complaint.
The labour agency will investigate the allegations and bring up charges against Apple if they find the claims valid.
The investigation comes as a surprise since Apple is known for its privacy. Workers in silicon valley in general usually prefer to avoid publicity, which reflects the company’s desire to keep the matter from the public eye.
Criticisms against Apple are on the rise
In the past few weeks, former and current workers of Apple have been criticizing the company on social media under the hashtag #AppleToo. Workers have also been debating the company’s decision to scan phones and computers of their U.S customers for child sex images.
