Apple is currently under investigation by the United States Labor department, after it allegedly ignored—and even punished—a number of workplace harassment complaints by a former employee named Ashley Gjøvik, as well as other ex Apple employees.
Up until September of this year, Ashley Gjøvik worked for the Cupertino company as a senior engineering program manager.
However, ever since March, she had been actively speaking out on social media and partaking in the #AppleToo movement (based on the original #MeToo Twitter movement), which strives to give a voice to employees who have been harassed—sexually or emotionally—within the Apple workplace, and then ignored, or worse—silenced—by the tech giant.
The pristine glass façade of one of the biggest companies in the world (both at the Apple Park and in Apple stores around the world) seemingly hides a much darker interior when it comes to work environment, says Gjøvik and hundreds of former female colleagues.
Ashley Gjøvik herself claims to have been subjected to months of harassment and bullying from both her manager and colleagues within the Apple engineering program, stemming from a perception of her being an uncooperative member.
It all started when she expressed concern at her work office being located on waste-contaminated grounds, which were emitting harmful vapors due to hazardous waste left behind by TRW Microwave, the company previously situated there.
Her concerns were met with derision, and things only escalated from there, says Gjøvik. She claims that she was forced to face "retaliation and intimidation" from other members of her team, and things reached their peak when Apple forced her to hand over her phone, containing all her personal texts and photos—including intimate ones—without allowing her to delete anything first.
“I’m disappointed that a company I have loved since I was a little girl would treat their employees this way,” she says.
By then, she had filed an official complaint with the National Labor Relations Board of the United States, and she informed Apple that all communications regarding her complaints hereon out would have to be put into writing, and that she would be forwarding all correspondence as evidence to the NLRB.
Apple took this as a refusal to co-operate, and informed Gjøvik that her access to all of Apple's systems would be unceremoniously cut off, due to the ‘seriousness of these allegations' and her decision not to participate in open discussion (although she had never actually refused to).
Shortly after that, Apple informed her in an e-mail—without even granting her the dignity of a phone call—that she was being immediately terminated, effective the following day. No notice, nothing.
Gjøvik isn't the only one to have dirt on Apple with the U.S. National Labor Relations Board, either, as at least one other colleague of Gjøvik's has also followed her example and complained to government authorities about her treatment as an Apple employee.
Following these allegations (and multiple others brought to light via the #AppleToo movement), the U.S. National Labor Relations Board has finally opened an official investigation on the Cupertino company to see what exactly is going on behind those walls, and how workplace complaints are really being handled by human resources and managers at Apple.
"Apple retaliated against me with such impunity," Ashley Gjøvik said in an interview (via CNET)."It seemed like they thought they'd never be held accountable," she continued. "I want to ensure the world sees that even the biggest company in the world isn't immune from accountability."
The #AppleToo movement hub can be found here, where anyone from the public can read published anonymous accounts of harassment cases by former Apple employees, as well as contribute their own stories if they once worked for the tech giant.
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