An employee of Apple Inc, who led had fellow workers to publicly share instances of harassment and discrimination at the company said that she had been fired on Thursday, Reuters reported.
An Apple program manager Janneke Parrish said the iPhone maker informed her that she had been fired for deleting material on company equipment while she was under investigation over the leaking of the company town hall to media. However, she denied leaking allegations to Reuters.
Parrish told the news agency that she only deleted apps containing details of her finances and other personal information before handing her devices in to Apple Inc as part of the investigation. She believes she was fired due to her activism in the workplace.
“To me, this seems clearly retaliatory for the fact that I was speaking out about abuses that have happened at my employer, pay equity and, generally, about our workplace conditions,” Parish noted.
Two Apple employees told Reuters last month that they had filed charges against Apple with the National Labor Relations Board. They accused the company of retaliation and halting discussion of pay among employees, with several other allegations.
The Apple Inc said it is “deeply committed to creating and maintaining a positive and inclusive workplace” and that it seriously takes “all concerns” from workers.
Meanwhile current and former Apple employees began discussing on social media, the experiences of harassment and discrimination. Janneke Parrish and some of her co-workers began publishing such stories on social media and a publishing platform in a weekly digest titled ‘#AppleToo’.
Parrish told Reuters that she was careful to respect company rules and never shared information that was confidential. She continued to publish the ‘#AppleToo’ digest after coming under probe at September end, she added.
“If anything, it’s made the importance of that work clearer than ever, when Apple’s response to criticism is to start internal investigations into those that it wants to see gone. It’s easier for them to terminate people than it is for them to actually listen,” Parish said.
(Inputs from Reuters)
