‘Biased against women’: Apple thinks men ‘have more talent’ than women, according to a California lawsuit

According to Apple, the company offers bigger paychecks to employees with more talent. But, when all else is equal, that policy discriminates against women because, based on pay, fewer females at the company are declared to have talent than men, according to a California lawsuit filed two years ago, which a judge recently ruled can proceed in court.

In 2019, two female Apple employees found a male colleague’s tax document on a copier, revealing he made $10,000 more than they did in a comparable role. Four years later, those female employees Justina Jong and Amina Salgado filed a lawsuit based on that discovery, alleging as many as 12,000 female Apple employees were discriminated against because they were paid less than men in Apple’s marketing, warranty, and engineering departments.

The suit says, “Apple also has a policy or practice of selecting individuals who have ‘talent’ and compensating those persons more highly than other employees.” As the suit explains, more men than women with similar qualifications are identified as having talent, so the policy discriminates based on gender.

The Cupertino, CA-based company tried to dismiss the suit claiming the 2019 copier discovery was an isolated incident beyond the statute of limitations and that the pay policies weren’t based on gender but on talent instead. On Jan. 21 this year, however, Judge Ethan Schulman of the San Francisco Superior Court declared the case could proceed, and reportedly, the plaintiffs will now seek class-action status.

The suit also says Apple’s review process is biased

In addition, the suit alleges that Apple’s employee review system is biased against women because male employees are rewarded with pay increases for types of performance in areas like teamwork and leadership, the same kinds of performance for which women get penalized. Because compensation increases are based on employee reviews, that fact creates further pay disparity, according to the suit.

Also in the suit, plaintiff Jong claimed she reported sexual harassment from a supervisor the same year the tax document was discovered in the copier, and while the man she said harassed her was disciplined in the company, her supervisors ignored her request to be transferred to a different team, and then a few years later, her harasser was moved to sit next to her. When she complained, Jong says her supervisor told her to “be professional, respectful, and collaborative.”

Back pay was denied

Meanwhile, the judge suspended the racial discrimination pay disparity claim in the suit based on insufficient evidence, although the complainant can mend the complaint and resubmit, the judge said. According to ICLG News, the suit also asked for back pay for female employees no longer at Apple, and Judge Schulman dismissed the request.

In a statement, Apple told Reuters, “Since 2017, Apple has achieved and maintained gender pay equity and every year we partner with an independent third-party expert to examine each team member’s total compensation and make adjustments, where necessary, to ensure that we maintain pay equity.”

But Zee Bori, a former Apple employee, disagrees. Gender discrimination, she says, is “in the back of your mind, but it’s still a shock when you discover it and realize that we’re doing the exact same thing, and I’m not being valued as much for no other reason than we’re two different genders,” NBC Bay Area reported.