Two Apple Employees Sue Over Alleged Gender Pay Discrimination
Two female Apple employees have filed a lawsuit against the tech giant, alleging that the company pays women less than men for equivalent work. The lawsuit, filed on Thursday, seeks class-action status to represent over 12,000 current and former female employees in Apple’s engineering, marketing, and AppleCare divisions.
This lawsuit places Apple among other major tech companies that have faced similar legal challenges. In 2018, Google settled a gender discrimination lawsuit for $118 million, and Oracle settled for $25 million, though neither company admitted wrongdoing.
The legal complaint focuses on Apple’s hiring practices and performance evaluations, claiming they contribute to a persistent wage gap between male and female employees. Despite California’s 2018 ban on asking job candidates about their prior pay, the lawsuit alleges Apple circumvented this by asking for pay expectations and then using this information to set lower starting salaries for women.
Additionally, the lawsuit asserts that Apple’s performance evaluation criteria are biased. It argues that parameters such as teamwork and leadership disproportionately favour men, negatively impacting women’s promotions and bonuses.
One of the plaintiffs, Justina Jong, a customer and technical training instructor, recounted an incident where she discovered a male colleague’s W-2 form showing he earned nearly $10,000 more than her for similar work. “This revelation made me feel terrible,” Jong said in a statement.
The lawsuit also claims that Jong was subjected to a hostile work environment, working next to a colleague who had sexually harassed her.
The second plaintiff, Amina Salgado, reported her concerns about wage disparity to Apple multiple times since joining the company in 2012. After a third-party investigation confirmed she was paid less than her male counterparts, Apple increased her pay in late 2023 but did not provide back pay for previous years of unequal compensation, according to the lawsuit.
The plaintiffs are seeking compensation for lost wages and declaratory and injunctive relief to address and rectify the alleged discriminatory practices.