Apple employees want the company to re-investigate complaints of harassment, racism and abuse

An Apple store employee in New York.

Mark Lennihan/AP Photo

Apple employees are demanding a re-investigation into past complaints of harassment and racism at the company.
Employees, in an open letter, also demanded pay equity and protection against identity-based discrimination.
The letter comes as more employees are coming forward about working conditions at the company over several months.
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Apple employees are calling on CEO Tim Cook and senior leadership to re-investigate employee complaints of racism, discrimination, abuse and harassment at the company.

An open letter was posted Friday on the website of the AppleToo, an Apple worker's organization that creates a safe forum to voice stories of discrimination and mistreatment at the company. The #AppleToo campaign has received hundreds of complaints about the company, especially regarding alleged inaction from the Apple HR department.

"Apple prides itself on its commitment to diversity, equity, and an environment where every person is able to do their best work; however, in practice, this is far from the case," workers said in the letter. "Our experiences with the People team in dealing with harassment and discrimination have left many of us more vulnerable."

"We are asking for an unbiased third-party audit of Apple's reporting structure, People and Employee Relations teams, Business Conduct, and all executive leadership. We want a thorough re-investigation of all reports and results of racism, discrimination, abuse, harassment, concerted activity suppression, and retaliation following this audit," the letter reads.

-Apple Workers #AppleToo (@AppleLaborers) September 3, 2021

The letter asks for more transparency and privacy when it comes to workers reporting instances of alleged company misconduct. Employees are "aggressively encouraged" to sync their personal iCloud accounts to their work devices, according to the letter, which can give the company access to the way misconduct is reported. The letter criticizes Apple's "no reasonable expectation of privacy" policy, pushing for a clear separation between personal and work devices and legal protections for their personal data.

Workers also address equity in the letter, calling for transparency in compensations, and greater emphasis on inclusion and diversity in performance reviews, free of "gender, racial, disability, and heteronormative biases." Apple has previously said it is committed to pay equity for all its employees globally regardless of gender or ethnicity, but it blocked employee attempts to form a Slack channel dedicated to pay equity.

Apple has not responded to Insider's request for comment in response to Friday's letter.

The tech giant has been seeing a rise in workers speaking out against internal company practices, including two recent separate complaints employees filed with the National Labor Relations Board (NRLB).

In August, Ashley Gjøvik, a senior engineering program manager at Apple, was placed on leave after alleging sexism, bullying, and harassment from co-workers. Gjøvik cited an instance of senior employees keeping a scoreboard on how to abuse her, among other accusations.

Cher Scarlett, an Apple security engineer active in AppleToo, confirmed in a tweet that she had filed a charge with the NLRB on September 1 surrounding "unlawful conduct" and "unlawful rules" at the company. Scarlett also implored her fellow colleagues to report further cases of misconduct from leadership or employee relations at Apple.

The company has not specifically commented on either complaint. After the NRLB launched its probe Apple told Reuters in a statement it takes "all concerns seriously and we thoroughly investigate whenever a concern is raise."

Employees at Google and Amazon have also made attempts to protest and unionize respectively for worker's rights, though their requests have been met with pushback from company leaders.

Read the original article on Business Insider