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    • Apple has threatened workers for speaking out about pay, telecommuting, federal taxes
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    Apple has threatened workers for speaking out about pay, telecommuting, federal taxes

    Online Niel Posted on

    Ethan Baron
    | San Jose Mercury News

    An Apple employee was allegedly threatened with unspecified retaliation if he spoke about his performance bonus. Another was allegedly ordered to delete a social media post about how to continue working remotely at the company. One was allegedly told to stop talking about the payment on internal messaging systems and warned that the tech giant was “monitoring these discussions”. And another, software engineer Cher Scarlett, was kicked out of the company after she created an online salary survey for the trillion-dollar company’s workers.

    Those claims are the basis of a federal government indictment that accuses the Cupertino iPhone giant of “unlawfully interfering with, restraining and coercing employees” who exercise their rights under the National Labor Relations Act to help each other with workplace issues.

    Apple did not immediately respond to requests for comment on the administrative complaint, filed Oct. 31 by the National Labor Relations Board.

    The lawsuit by Scarlett — the former employee — and the agency that enforces the Labor Relations Act also alleges that Apple rejected an employee’s request to create an internal messaging channel about pay equity, telling the worker that the platform messaging was for business purposes only – despite letting other employees use it for non-business topics.

    Additionally, the complaint alleges, Apple told an employee not to speak to the media after they were quoted in the media about workplace issues.

    The worker who was ordered to remove the social media post about telecommuting was also asked by a human resources representative to provide the names of other Apple employees with whom the person spoke about telecommuting, the filing alleges. complaint.

    A manager in a phone call told a worker that Apple did not want employees to talk about wages or pay equity, the complaint alleges.

    The alleged incidents are believed to have taken place in 2021.

    According to the complaint, Scarlett helped found “Apple Too,” modeled after the #MeToo movement against sexual violence and intended to encourage Apple employees “to share stories and create transparency around incidents of discrimination, inequity, racism, and sexism that they- experienced during their employment” at Apple.

    In the summer of 2021, Scarlett created and posted a pay equity survey online where Apple employees could anonymously share information about their compensation, job categories, experience and personal information “to identify potential pay disparities.” Scarlett posted the survey on her personal Twitter account, now called X.

    The labor board and Scarlett allege in the complaint that she was forced out of the company by its response to her work on behalf of her fellow Apple workers. She announced on Twitter in November 2021 that she was leaving the company; technology website The Verge reported that it had reached an agreement with Apple.

    Apple allegedly cracked down on other employees who took action in response to Scarlett’s advocacy. Apple requested that a worker refrain from participating in the salary survey and was threatened with “unspecified retaliation” if he did so or if he continued to take part in salary discussions on the internal messaging platform, the complaint alleges.

    An Apple human resources manager refused to meet collectively with Apple workers concerned about the pay survey results and insisted on individual meetings, the complaint alleges. That manager, Jeannie Wong, in a video conference “questioned an employee about why and how the employee became involved in the Scarlett pay equity survey and who else is involved,” the complaint alleges.

    Online Niel
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