Apple Faces Probe From US Labor Board Over Complaints of Hostile Working Conditions (engadget.com) 32
The US National Labor Relations Board is looking into cases filed against the tech giant by two of the main voices accusing the company of permitting a hostile work environment. Engadget reports: The first complaint was filed by Ashley Gjovik, the senior engineering program manager who said she spent months talking with the company about unsafe working conditions and sexism in the workplace. In a tweet, she said that after raising her concerns, she was put on indefinite paid administrative leave while Apple looks into them. Further, she said Apple implied that the company didn't want her to use Slack, where she'd been vocal about her criticisms. Gjovik filed a "Charge against Employer" complaint, The Times says, alleging 13 instances of alleged retaliation against her. Those instances include workplace harassment, reassigning her supervisory responsibilities to colleagues and giving her undesirable tasks
The second complaint the labor board is investigation was filed by Cher Scarlett, on behalf of herself and other employees, on September 1st. Scarlett is a security engineer at the company and is the face of the #AppleToo movement made up of current and former employees aiming to shine a light on the tech giant's workplace culture. The group said it collected over 500 stories of incidents involving discrimination, harassment and retaliation, and it recently started sharing them five stories at a time. Her case accuses Apple of suppressing workers' organizing efforts, specifically when they involve pay surveys and gender pay equity. Apple said in a statement: "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 second complaint the labor board is investigation was filed by Cher Scarlett, on behalf of herself and other employees, on September 1st. Scarlett is a security engineer at the company and is the face of the #AppleToo movement made up of current and former employees aiming to shine a light on the tech giant's workplace culture. The group said it collected over 500 stories of incidents involving discrimination, harassment and retaliation, and it recently started sharing them five stories at a time. Her case accuses Apple of suppressing workers' organizing efforts, specifically when they involve pay surveys and gender pay equity. Apple said in a statement: "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 least valuable employees squawk the most. (Score:1, Insightful)
Re:The least valuable employees squawk the most. (Score:4, Insightful)
It does seem like the companies who bend over backwards the furthest to accommodate political correctness are the most likely to be accused of violating it, since they attract idealists.
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It does seem like the companies who bend over backwards the furthest to accommodate political correctness are the most likely to be accused of violating it, since they attract idealists.
That is part of it. But these kerfuffles also get way more attention from journalists when they happen at woke companies.
Accusations of toxic behavior at a company like Oracle would be much less newsworthy.
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Chances are we will never hear the full details, Google will settle before it all comes out in open court.
It's a shame as I was really hoping the Damore case would get argued in open court.
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Wired did a good article about it, where they asked the authors of the papers he cited if his conclusions were justified. The answer was basically no, he failed to understand what the papers where really saying and drew conclusions that they didn't support.
Had it gone to court I think it's likely that at least one of them would have been called as a witness against him.
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I decided to read through the evidence (Score:3)
For example, she is campaigning to eliminate the use of simple, inoffensive terminology like âopen the kimonoâ(TM). I would not want vice-principal strongwoman inhibiting my ability to efficiently express myself and Iâ(TM)m sure most o
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In Soviet Russia (Score:2)
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It's an older meme sir, but it checks out.
The one quote that caught my eye. (Score:5, Insightful)
>giving her undesirable tasks
EVERY DAY my job gives me undesirable tasks from the moment I wake up. I don't want to wake up that early. I don't want to put clothes on. I don't want to drink a mug of coffee just to function, or log into VPN on my telework weeks. I don't want to commute to work. I don't want to do what THEY want me to do for 8 hours a day. I just want to stay up as late as I want, sleep in as late as I want, show up if I feel like it and still get a paycheck.
Expensive clerk (Score:2)
Fairly lately they have been giving me and some colleagues entry-level and clerical work. It's not economical to pay for "expensive clerks". And I'm a plodding clerk such that they are paying roughly 4x what they need to for grunt work. It's not just bad for me, but the org also. It's burning money. They do need experienced IT staff, yet are squandering what they have.
I've pointed this out to them many times, but they ignore it. Budget cuts* allegedly shrank HR et.
Re: The one quote that caught my eye. (Score:2)
The "Mission Impossible" marginalization tactic (Score:3)
>giving her undesirable tasks
EVERY DAY my job gives me undesirable tasks from the moment I wake up. I don't want to wake up that early. I don't want to put clothes on. I don't want to drink a mug of coffee just to function, or log into VPN on my telework weeks. I don't want to commute to work. I don't want to do what THEY want me to do for 8 hours a day. I just want to stay up as late as I want, sleep in as late as I want, show up if I feel like it and still get a paycheck.
Ever have an employee you want to get rid of because you're a shitty person, but cannot fire? Well, then you have to get sneaky. One popular tactic is by assigning impossible tasks or shit tasks, hoping the employee quits, fails, or call you out and looks like a psycho doing it. In this case, I'd have to know more details to judge, but this is an old tactic we used to call the "mission impossible" trick. Give someone a task that cannot be done or sabotage them doing it so you can build cause for their f
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This is a classic tactic - focus on one small part of a larger pattern of bad behaviour. The idea is that if you can unpick that one small part of the overall claim the reader will dismiss the whole thing, even though doing so is a logical fallacy.
Fortunately the Labor Board won't fall for that.
Big Effing Deal (Score:2)
Apple Faces Probe From US Labor Board Over Complaints of Hostile Working Conditions
That used to mean something. These days, in the United States, it means "pay us a quarter of one percent of your daily profit from using child slave labour and we'll strut around claiming victory, while you put another couple of strokes of the lash across the kiddies' backs and go back to business as usual. If you're adults, we might get really nasty.
Really? (Score:2)
Further, she said Apple implied that the company didn't want her to use Slack, where she'd been vocal about her criticisms.
I have absolutely no opinion on what may or may not have been happening at Apple. It's Apple, if it came out tomorrow that her supervisor was forcing her to dress in black turtlenecks cropped above the navel and cutoff jeans, I wouldn't really be surprised. However, I cannot imagine how anyone could have a problem with a policy of not permitting employees to turn a hostile work environment into a hostile and toxic work environment.
Apple is Over (Score:2)
OK, it's not over today, or tomorrow, but once you start letting bureaucratic parasites into a company, the rot will start setting in, and is hard to reverse.
Companies start off small and lean, they're full of busy people doing useful jobs. They hire people with useful skills. At a certain point, two things happen, the founders leave or die, and the public realises it's a big successful company.
Once these two things happen, you then have management who don't really care that much, and lots of people who j
Hostile work conditions? (Score:2)
But they moved all the iPhone production to level factories with only 1 floor, so jumping out the window doesn't hurt you.
Summary (Score:1)
Humans work at Apple.