Apple on Thursday was hit with a proposed class motion accusing the tech large of paying greater than 12,000 feminine workers in California lower than males with comparable jobs.
The lawsuit filed in state court docket in San Francisco by two ladies who’ve labored at Apple for greater than a decade claims the corporate systematically underpays feminine staff in its engineering, advertising, and AppleCare divisions.
Apple bases staff’ beginning pay on their salaries at earlier jobs or on their “pay expectations,” which leads to decrease pay charges for ladies, in keeping with the grievance. The lawsuit additionally claims that Apple’s efficiency analysis system, which it makes use of to set raises and bonuses, is biased towards ladies.
Cupertino, California-based Apple in an announcement mentioned it’s dedicated to inclusion and pay fairness.
“Since 2017, Apple has achieved and maintained gender pay fairness and yearly we associate with an unbiased third-party knowledgeable to look at every group member’s whole compensation and make changes, the place essential, to make sure that we keep pay fairness,” the corporate mentioned.
Eve Cervantez, a lawyer for the plaintiffs, mentioned Apple’s practices perpetuate and widen present gender pay gaps.
“It is a no-win scenario for feminine workers at Apple,” Cervantez mentioned in an announcement.
The plaintiffs are represented by class motion legislation companies Outten & Golden, Cohen Milstein Sellers & Toll and Altshuler Berzon. The companies have brokered large settlements in different intercourse bias circumstances, together with a $215 million take care of Goldman Sachs final yr and a $175 million settlement with Sterling Jewelers in 2022. These firms denied wrongdoing.
California has since 2018 prohibited employers from asking job candidates about their wage historical past with the objective of eliminating pay gaps based mostly on intercourse and race.
In accordance with Thursday’s lawsuit, Apple as an alternative depends on candidates’ pay expectations to set their salaries. However as a result of most staff present a determine that’s barely larger than what they earned at their final job, the follow has the identical impact of perpetuating wage disparities, the lawsuit says.
Apple additionally rewards workers who’re deemed to have “expertise” by paying them extra however disproportionately grants that designation to males, the plaintiffs declare.
The lawsuit accuses Apple of violating California’s Equal Pay Act, which bars intercourse discrimination in pay, and state legal guidelines prohibiting office intercourse bias and unfair enterprise practices.
One of many plaintiffs, Justina Jong, additionally claims that Apple refused to switch her to a special group after she complained about sexual harassment by a coworker. The lawsuit seeks unspecified damages and penalties.
(Reporting by Wiessner in Albany, New York; Enhancing by Aurora Ellis, Alexia Garamfalvi and Josie Kao)
High picture: The emblem of Apple is illuminated at a retailer within the metropolis heart in Munich, Germany, Wednesday, Dec. 16, 2020. Apple’s delayed launch of its newest iPhones unleashed a vacation shopping for frenzy that propelled gross sales of the trendsetting firm’s hottest product to its quickest begin in years. The apparently pent-up demand for 4 completely different iPhone 12 fashions highlighted Apple’s newest quarterly report Wednesday, Jan. 27, 2021. (AP Picture/Matthias Schrader).
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