A group of current and former Apple have come together to ask their colleagues to share personal stories of discrimination, harassment, and vindictive and toxic behavior within the company. As of August 27, the employee group called #AppleToo said it has collected 500 such stories. Now, those stories are starting to be published on official page Medium . Cher Scarlett, an Apple security engineer and the leader of the #AppleToo movement, wrote on Medium that she will be publishing five stories at a time, as the stories are quite intense and emotionally charged.
See also: 5 more women sue Amazon: Gender, racial discrimination and harassment
Two of the first five stories are about sexual harassment. In one case, a male, senior executive, used his position of authority to harass a female employee. The employee was later kicked out of an interview after the hiring team found out who she was. Another story involves a black retail worker in the UK who tried to get his bosses to do something about racism and microaggressions in the workplace (to no avail, of course). A female employee spoke about how she was targeted by someone on her team and how management did nothing about it. The final story is about an employee who was attacked by a customer and received no support from management.
See also: Color of Change: Investigate Google for racial discrimination
These five stories will only be the beginning, if Scarlett decides to publish all the incidents shared with her by current and former Apple employees. However, most of the #AppleToo stories have one common theme: they involve some form of discrimination. A large percentage relate to sexism and retaliation. A quarter involved racism and discrimination based on employees’ abilities , while most of the stories of harassment and assault were sexual in nature.
See also: Apple: Postpones return to offices to January 2022
In an interview with Protocol, Scarlett said she feels “the company needs to be held accountable. People want to feel heard. And they don’t feel like Apple is listening to them.” She also said that some employees who have been with the company for a very long time felt like their leadership was listening to them, but that’s no longer the case.
When news of the #AppleToo movement first broke, Apple said: “We take all concerns seriously and conduct thorough investigations whenever something comes to light, and out of respect for the privacy of the individuals involved, we do not discuss employee matters.”
Source: Engadget
