Apple lets employees speak about pay

Apple employees have long expressed dissatisfaction with their pay and concerns about company culture. This led to the creation of the employee group AppleToo earlier this year, where employees can share stories of workplace discrimination and misconduct.

At the time, the HR team was criticized by members of AppleToo who told Insider that HR “didn’t really consider anything they complained about to be an issue.”

However, it seems that Apple is keen to address issues raised by the group. So the tech giant has sent out an internal email that tells employees they have the right to openly express their concerns on issues about working conditions or pay equality.

Apple’s stance

NBC, who obtained a copy of the Apple memo, shared the message that has been distributed to 80,000 US employees.

The message read: “Our policies do not restrict employees from speaking freely about their wages, hours, or working conditions.

“We encourage any employee with concerns to raise them in the way they feel most comfortable, internally or externally, including through their manager, any Apple manager, people support, people business partner, or business conduct.”

While Apple is clear on its position around the future reporting of misconduct, some will be concerned that the company is not actually addressing the issues already raised by employees and making changes.

As a result, employee discontentment with Apple may continue. Since the AppleToo group began, eight unfair labor charges have been filed against the company. At the moment, one has been dismissed.

Janneke Parrish, a co-founder of AppleToo, and in a court filing accused the company of retaliating against her because she facilitated discussions about the company.

Speaking about this development, Parrish said: “What we have been saying for months is that workers have rights and that our voices deserve to be heard”.

“Apple has made numerous attempts to stop us from using our voices and discussing working conditions and pay.

“This statement shows that we have a legal right to speak. It also shows the power of workers’ voices in unison. When we work together and speak together, even the biggest companies have to hear us.”

Creating equal pay

Apple’s diversity and inclusion page states: “Globally, employees of all genders earn the same when engaging in similar work with comparable experience and performance.”

However, it is evident that workers are not finding this to be the case. While Apple will look at its own internal tools, there are many tech tools that can help businesses assess their inequalities.

The likes of Payscale and Fairpay offer transparency and enable HR to address balance issues through dashboards and customizable data searches.

Technology like this may be one step for Apple to consider as it continues to address the myriad of complaints filed by employees.