After months of conflicting messages, Apple has told employees they are free to talk about their wages.
On Saturday, NBC News reported that the tech giant had clarified its stance on these issues in a memo to staff posted on one of its internal sites. The move was made in light of employee actions around pay equity in recent months, including launching a number of surveys and a Slack channel on the topic as well as unifying under the #AppleToo movement, even though Apple maintains that there is no disparity.
Talking about salaries and job conditions is protected under federal law despite Apple's insistence that pay equity is not an issue at the company. The New York Times confirmed Apple's memo.
The internal site where the memo was posted is accessible to 80,000 of the company's employees in the U.S.
Employees can speak freely about their wages, hours, or working conditions, according to the memo. We encourage any employee with concerns to raise them in the way they feel most comfortable, internally or external, including through their manager, Apple manager, People Support, People Business partner, or Business Conduct.
Gizmodo reached out to Apple on Saturday to confirm the legitimacy of the memo, but we did not receive a response by the time of publication. If we hear back, we will make sure to update this post.
The October 2020 edition of the company's business conduct policy stated that nothing in the document should be construed as limiting employee rights to speak freely about their wages, hours, or working conditions.
In August, Cher Scarlett, a principal software engineer at Apple, told Gizmodo that the company had stymied three efforts to carry out a pay transparency survey among employees. The company said the surveys were not in line with company policy. Apple was accused of engaging in coercive and suppressive activity that has enabled abuse and harassment of organizers of protected concerted activity.
The company banned a channel dedicated to the issue of pay equity because it claimed it did not meet Apple's terms of use, but allowed other channels on topics such as gaming, dogs, and dad jokes to remain.
Apple refused to make it clear that workers can speak about their employment conditions in its employment agreements, despite a request from activists and shareholders, according to a report.
After reaching a settlement with Apple, which was not made public, the details of which were not made public, and she said she was leaving the company, the National Labor Relations Board withdrew her complaint.
