Apple on brink of MeToo moment as workers vent on racism, sexism

Hundreds of workers at the world’s most valuable company have shared their stories of racism, sexism and discrimination.

Apple CEO Tim Cook has painstakingly cultivated the company’s woke image. Picture: AFP

The wave of employee activism that has swept through big tech in recent years has left Google, Microsoft and Facebook convulsed by revolts. Yet one giant appeared to sail above the fray: Apple.

That may be changing. In the past fortnight, hundreds of workers at the world’s most valuable company have responded to a public invitation to share their stories of racism, sexism and discrimination. Cher Scarlett, an Apple engineer, created a hashtag, AppleToo – a play on MeToo – and a website for present and former employees to vent their grievances. She received more than 1000 responses.

“For too long, Apple has evaded public scrutiny,” the site, appletoo.us, said. “The truth is that for many Apple workers – a reality faced disproportionately by our black, indigenous, and other colleagues from minoritised racial, gender, and historically marginalised groups – the culture of secrecy creates an opaque, intimidating fortress.”

Ms Scarlett last week published five stories from Apple workers. Among them was a black employee at the iPhone giant’s retail operation in Britain, who said he was passed over for promotion because he was seen as too “serious” and not “black enough”. Others alleged rampant sexual harassment, and painted Apple as an unresponsive monolith.

The complaints clash with the image of Apple as the wokest of corporations – an image painstakingly cultivated and enforced by Tim Cook. The chief executive, 60, has been a prominent voice in support of gay rights, climate change action, pay equity and other social issues. The company is also famous for its security, hiring former FBI and Secret Service agents to stop product design leaks and hermetically seal teams from one another. Employees often have to sign non-disclosure agreements, forbidding them to discuss their work even with spouses.

The pandemic, however, led to working from home en masse, with tools such as Slack proving verdant territory for people to connect. The spasm of public gripes has followed.

Ashley Gjovik, a program manager who has worked at Apple for more than six years, was put on indefinite leave last month after she tweeted allegations of sexism. She posted a screenshot of what she claimed was a whiteboard tally created by fellow workers who “scored points” for making her life a “living hell”.

Ms Scarlett said most of the ­responses so far had been from people who work in the company’s retail operation. Apple employs 160,000 people around the world and it is hard to ascertain whether #AppleToo is a flare-up of a relatively small group of workers or if it will cause upheaval at the $US2.5 trillion giant.

There is precedent for the latter. In 2018 more than 20,000 workers at Google walked out after it was revealed the company paid $US90m to an executive accused of sexual harass­ment. This year a handful of workers formed a union.

Microsoft and Amazon have been hit with public letters, signed by hundreds of employees, demanding they stop selling facial recognition software to governments and law enforcers. They pledged, temporarily, to do so. Hundreds of Facebook staff staged a “virtual walkout” last year amid anger at its early, permissive stance on Donald Trump’s incendiary posts.

Now Apple’s vaunted principles are coming under strain. Several suppliers of Apple components in China have been accused of relying on slave labour from Uighurs, the persecuted minority that the Biden administration has said are the victims of “genocide” at the hands of the Chinese government.

Apple has said previously that none of its Chinese factories or suppliers use Uighur labour. ­Regarding #AppleToo, it said: “We are and have always been deeply committed to creating and maintaining a positive and inclusive workplace. We take all concerns seriously and we thoroughly investigate whenever a concern is raised and, out of respect for the privacy of any individuals involved, we do not discuss specific employee matters.”

The Sunday Times