More than 500 current and former Apple employees have reportedly submitted troubling accounts of verbal abuse, sexual harassment, retaliation, and discrimination in the workplace to an employee-activist group called #AppleToo in the last month.
Apple’s reputation for privacy and secrecy within the workplace has led to concerns being allegedly dismissed, causing two company employees, Cher Scarlett and Janneke Parrish, to create a website where Apple workers can post their stories of harassment and discrimination online. According to the website, the goal is “deprogramming the code of silence at Apple.”
Facing increased pressure and unrest, Apple finally addressed employee concerns over pay equity and the company’s stance on Texas’s new pro-life law on Friday. But when Apple CEO Tim Cook spoke in the all-company meeting on Sept. 17, he reportedly took just two questions — though there were more — from the activist employees.
“When we find any gaps at all, which sometimes we do, we close them,” Apple’s Head of HR, Deirdre O’Brien, insisted in response to mounting pressure about pay.
Woke employees also wanted to know what Cook and Apple are doing to “protect” employees from the new pro-life law in Texas that bans abortion after a baby’s heartbeat can be detected. Cook said the company is looking into whether it’s possible to jump in the legal fight against the law and assured Texas employees that Apple’s medical insurance would help cover them if they want to travel to another state for an abortion.
Leftist employees were unsatisfied with Cook’s answers, however, in keeping with the trend of activists pushing for corporate wokeness. Parrish, one of those activist employees who runs #AppleToo, told the Times she was unimpressed and that the question she submitted — “about what concrete steps Apple had taken to ensure that pay gaps were resolved and that more women and people of color were being promoted to leadership roles” — went unanswered.
“We are and have always been deeply committed to creating and maintaining a positive and inclusive workplace,” Apple told the Times. But in Silicon Valley, woke corporations can never be woke enough.
