Apple Inc. has been sued by two female employees who claim that the corporate “systematically” pays women lower than their male colleagues for comparable work. The two employees now wish to represent hundreds of other women who face the identical alleged discrimination.
She claim that Apple, based in Cupertino, California, determined starting salaries before 2018 by asking employees about their salary history and that this practice “perpetuated historic pay gaps between men and women.”
When California banned the practice, the iPhone maker began asking about salary expectations, which perpetuated the inequality, the ladies claim.
“Apple’s policy and practice of collecting such information about salary expectations and using that information to determine starting salary has had a disparate impact on women, and Apple’s refusal to pay women and men equal pay for performing substantially similar work is simply not justified as a matter of law,” Joe Sellers, an attorney at Cohen Milstein Sellers & Toll PLLC who’s representing the employees, said in an announcement.
Insight right into a W-2
Employees Justina Jong and Amina Salgado also claim that men repeatedly receive higher scores in teamwork and leadership in performance reviews at Apple, resulting in lower bonuses and salaries for ladies.
Jong only realized that she was earning about $10,000 lower than a male colleague when she saw his W-2 form on the office printer, the statement said.
An Apple representative didn’t immediately reply to a request for comment on the lawsuit filed Thursday in California state court.
Lawsuits over wage discrimination against women within the technology industry have sometimes resulted in substantial settlements which have nevertheless led to one or two paychecks per person. The lawyers who filed the suit on Thursday include those that have filed similar lawsuits against Oracle Corp. and Google and won average settlements of $3,750 and $5,500 per person, respectively, after legal costs.
12,000 employees
Jong and Salgado filed the lawsuit on behalf of greater than 12,000 current and former female employees in Apple’s engineering, marketing and AppleCare departments in California. Both have worked at Apple for greater than a decade, in keeping with the lawsuit.
Salgado had complained to Apple in regards to the pay discrepancy “multiple times,” but despite its own investigations, Apple didn’t increase her salary until a third-party investigation concluded there was a pay gap between her and her male colleagues, the grievance says. According to her lawyers, she received no back pay.
Jong and Salgado are demanding an unspecified amount of the salary they are saying they’re entitled to.
The Wall Street Journal had previously reported on the lawsuit.
The case is Jong v. Apple, Supreme Court of California, San Francisco County.
