Apple retains shutting down employee-run surveys on pay fairness — and labor legal professionals say it’s unlawful

Apple insists it doesn’t have an issue with pay inequality. Skeptical Apple staff have been attempting to confirm that declare by sending out casual surveys on how a lot folks make, significantly because it pertains to girls and underrepresented minorities. But the corporate has shut down three of these surveys, citing stringent guidelines on how staff can accumulate information. Now, a number of labor legal professionals inform The Verge the corporate could also be violating employee protections: the surveys may be thought of a type of labor organizing — under US law, staff have the correct to debate pay.

“Apple cannot bar its employees from discussing pay equity as it relates to protected classes,” says Vincent P. White, a labor lawyer with White, Hilferty & Albanese. “If they were, they could tell people not to talk about pronouns. The logical outgrowth of that doesn’t even track. I view their effort to shut this down as an act of retaliation.”

The first identified survey started within the spring and requested folks to volunteer wage data along with how they determine by way of race, ethnicity, gender, and incapacity. After about 100 responses, Apple’s folks group — the corporate’s identify for what is often referred to as human assets — requested staff to take the survey down, saying the demographic questions constituted personally figuring out data, or PII.

Last week, staff tried to start out one other pay fairness survey however have been once more advised to take it down as a result of it included a query on gender. When they created a brand new survey with out the gender query, the Apple folks group allegedly mentioned it needed to be shut down as a result of it was hosted on the corporate’s company Box account.

“This is like a 2021 version of a foreman on the docks telling people they can’t compare their wages way back in the 1800s,” says White. “This isn’t new. It’s just the newest version of ‘you can’t talk about your pay.’”

The folks group additionally despatched staff the next data on “prohibited surveys”:

Prohibited Surveys
The following worker surveys are prohibited in all circumstances and is probably not performed.

Surveys as Data Collection

Surveys usually are not permitted for use as a method of accumulating identifiable worker information with out following the same old course of to acquire this information from the People group. This contains any questions on an worker’s handle, demographics, and so forth, aside from accumulating nation or area, which is permitted.

Using surveys as a software to gather well being data — together with however not restricted to well being reviews, testing outcomes, and vaccination standing — can also be prohibited.

All requests for identifiable worker information have to be submitted to the People group through the People Report Request Form. If accredited, the People group will present the worker information immediately from their programs.

Surveys Requesting Diversity Data
Diversity information is extremely delicate private information. If you might have a necessity for such data, you will need to work along with your I&D Business Partner and the I&D Insights and Solutions group earlier than accumulating any information.

“Those rules may themselves violate the protected right to concerted activity — while [Apple] might point to these handbook type rules that you’ve agreed to not do this as a condition of employment, that doesn’t mean they can legally prevent employees from doing what they’re doing,” says Veena Dubal, a regulation professor at UC Hastings.

Now, Apple engineer Cher Scarlett has began a brand new survey on Typeform, which she is paying for out of pocket. “I was looking at levels.fyi (a website that lets people compare salary data across companies) and noticed a few very low salaries in a certain geographic area that were 10 to 15 percent lower compared to other people on the team,” Scarlett says. “Every time I looked at gender, they were women. I’m not going to say that’s a definitive issue, but it’s a prompt for anyone to ask if this is a widespread problem. We should be able to easily find out whether or not that’s the case so we can know whether people are truly being paid fairly.”

The new survey, which has practically 500 entries, asks staff to volunteer data on their wage, degree, group, newest RSU grant, tenure at Apple, geographic location, signing bonus, related work expertise, in addition to whether or not they’re completely distant, and a member of an underrepresented race or gender.

“We want our colleagues and industry peers to have the knowledge of Apple’s pay bands and to give minoritized employees and prospective employees the confidence to negotiate fair wages and bonuses,” the survey reads.

Grace Reckers, an organizer with the Office and Professional Employees International Union, says the truth that this data is all voluntary ought to shield staff. “This is protected activity — because you’re opting into the survey, I don’t even know how the PII excuse would work or matter.”

Scarlett says Apple’s response to the surveys has solely made staff extra suspicious: “I don’t think anyone is going into this saying there for sure is a wage gap, whether that’s gender or race or disability. But it is concerning to everyone that every single time someone tries to create more transparency, Apple shuts it down. It makes it feel like maybe there is a problem, and they’re already aware of it.”

In 2018, Apple’s imply and median gender pay hole for workers within the UK was 12 % in favor of males. That’s 5 share factors beneath the general gender pay hole within the UK. The firm has to publish this information underneath UK regulation, however it doesn’t have the identical necessities within the US.

Two years earlier, Apple CEO Tim Cook told investors that ladies at Apple made 99.6 cents for each greenback males made, whereas underrepresented minorities made 99.7 cents for each greenback white staff made. That similar 12 months, the corporate launched a range report saying it had fastened the issue.

Apple didn’t reply to a request for remark from The Verge.