A class action lawsuit filed on behalf of 12,000 current and former staff claims that Apple underpaid female employees over a four-year period.
The lawsuit said that while the Cupertino company didn’t do this deliberately, it had two policies in place which led to this result …
Engadget reports that Apple has used two different ways to help determine the salary offers made to candidates.
Up until the summer of 2017, Apple asked candidates the salary they were paid in their current role, and based its offer on some improvement on this number. The problem with this is that if a female employee was underpaid in her previous role, then Apple would be perpetuating the differential in her new salary.
Apple recognized this problem, and ceased asking the question. Recruiters instead asked about candidate’s salary expectations, and based their offer on this. However, the Californian lawsuit alleges that this too perpetuates salary differentials, because studies show that candidates tend to base this number on some increase from their current salary.
The lawsuit alleges that both of these practices led to lower pay rates for women in the workplace. It also claims the latter policy of asking prospective employees for their pay expectations is “highly correlated with prior pay; studies show that persons asked for pay expectations generally provide a number slightly higher than the pay at their current or last job.”
The pay policy for job applicants created a pattern of lower pay for female employees, the lawsuit alleges: “Apple’s policy or practice of collecting information about pay expectations and using that information to set starting salary has had the effect of perpetuating past pay disparities and paying women less than men performing substantially similar work.”
Top comment by FishWhisperer
Aahhh statistics... It is easy to focus in what you want to see and ignore what you don't want to see. 6% difference doesn't sound to me like a huge difference, and close to the 3% error margin of scientific polls. We don't know how many women/men were surveyed and if the survey included title and seniority at the company. Starting a lawsuit based on a survey sounds to me like a weak start.
The truth is people will get what they negotiate. That was a hard lesson for me when a I accidentally saw a coworker's pay slip he left on his desk next to mine. We both had the exact same role and job description, similar education and experience, and reported to the same manager. I asked him if he could tell me how much he made because I felt I was underpaid, and he was very open confirming what I saw, and explaining that he always made sure to negotiate above average salaries and prepared with industry statistics when he got a job offer. He even gave me good advice. Following his advice I managed to negotiate a pay raise. Years later when I became a manager, I could see it by myself: most people just accept what they are offered, some ask for a little more, and very few come prepared to fight and negotiate.
The suit also claims that men and women were scored differently for the same behaviors during performance evaluations.
The lawsuit alleges that Apple has violated the California Equal Pay Act among other things, and seeks compensation for the alleged underpayments, as well as penalties and interest.
The issue previously arose back in 2021, when an employee-run internal survey revealed a pay differential of 6% between men and women in the same roles. Apple responded by banning any further internal employee surveys.
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