Apple still has a diversity problem

Image credit: Bryce Durbin/TechCrunch

The higher you climb Apple’s internal ladder, the whiter it gets. That’s according to data analyzed by the Communications Workers of America (CWA), a union that helps organize retail workers at Apple stores.

As some Apple retail employees fight for union recognition and participation at the bargaining table, the CWA is set to show how Apple falls short in its diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) efforts. It uses Apple’s proprietary data.

Despite Apple’s efforts to build a more racially diverse workforce, data shows that managers are still skewed white. Despite Apple’s success in hiring more people of color, the data shows the company disproportionately promoted white workers.

People of color are much more likely to get low-level jobs at Apple. According to Apple’s own data collected between 2014 and 2021, the number of Black and Hispanic workers increased by 70.1% and 93.1% respectively. However, for black workers, 85.6% of their jobs are in low-wage sales or managerial support roles. He is 60.8% among hypsanics.

On the other hand, the number of whites in sales positions decreased by 24.9%, while the number of whites in the “primary/mid-level staff and manager” and “professional” occupations increased by 187.2% over the seven years.

The CWA report also found that Apple hasn’t seen a year-over-year increase in the percentage of blacks and Hispanics in its highest-level job title, “Executive/Executive.”[senior] officers and managers. According to Apple’s latest Employer Information Report (EEO-1), he has 126 employees in the highest job category. Of this group of highest paid employees, 77.7% are white. She is the only woman of color among 126 senior executives.

Apple says it does not use these government-mandated reports to measure its own progress.

These findings come as no surprise to Sidney Law, who has worked in Apple’s retail stores in New York City for almost 12 years and has worked his way through the ranks of store managers. When he left his Apple, he posted his salary on LinkedIn to show his salary transparency. Following in his footsteps, more than 700 Apple retail employees shared their salaries anonymously, including gender and race.

“There are always two sides to Apple: Apple as a legal entity and Apple as a retail entity,” Lo told TechCrunch. “From a decision-making perspective, some of these [DEI] Decisions are lost in the transition from company to retailer and retailer to employee. ”

For some Apple employees, the lack of diversity in leadership could be due to the lack of clarity on how to get promoted and which metrics are most important when considering salary increases. Some people think so. One current retail employee told CWA that career advancement paths feel “arbitrary” and “like playing Wordle”, except that guessing a word changes the solution.

“Apple likes to follow random format metrics guidelines that we don’t even know about…they don’t follow monthly or weekly metrics,” said another retail employee at CWA. told to

Former Apple software engineer Cher Scarlett, leader of the #AppleToo labor movement, found a similar trend among Apple employees. An internal survey of about 3,000 respondents Scarlett conducted in 2021 found that white men had a much better chance of getting promoted within the company.

“I am very impressed that not only are women and people of color more likely to be in these lower positions, but they are also more likely to be in hospitality and retail rather than in hardware, AI, ML or software engineering. It’s a big deal,” Scarlett told TechCrunch.

Scarlett also found in the internal research that men are generally paid more than their female colleagues, even if men and women work in similar jobs for the same length of time.

“White men are getting promoted, so they earn more than others,” Scarlett said.

Apple has a history of suspending employee surveys on pay equity. Law began compiling the data after she left her company, but Scarlett said during her internal investigation that she learned Apple was becoming increasingly hostile to her. I noticed. She eventually left her company after receiving the settlement money and withdrawing a complaint she filed with the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB).

Around the same time Scarlett left Apple, another #AppleToo organizer, Janneke Parrish, was fired for “non-compliance.” A former Apple Maps program manager has been released after deleting her personal files from her phone and computer before turning them over to Apple for her investigation. She told The New York Times that she felt she was being retaliated against for organizing it.

The same trend applies at the retail level. The CWA alleges that Apple retaliated against five Kansas City union organizers for dismissing them for attendance-related issues. Employees said they felt they were treated specially because this type of layoff was historically uncommon at the store.

Like many other companies, the coronavirus pandemic has brought fundamental issues at Apple to the forefront, fueling conversations about union organization among employees.

“I think the really hard part was finding out how successful the company was during these difficult times. “We were asked to continue to do more so that your work expanded into the various elements of health and safety. I was basically a nurse and a manager.”

For the first time in U.S. history, two retailers in Towson, Maryland and Oklahoma City have voted to form a union in 2022, despite Apple’s attempts to persuade its employees. Ahead of the Towson union vote, Deirdre O’Brien, vice president of employees and retail at the trillion-dollar company, sent a video warning its 58,000 retail staff of the shortcomings of unionization. .

Apple retains the same anti-union law firm, Littler Mendelsohn, that represents companies such as Amazon and Starbucks. The NLRB found that all three companies were justified in accusing them of violating labor laws that protect employees’ right to organize. The NLRB found that Apple, in particular, illegally intervened in organizing workers at stores in New York City and Atlanta.

In conjunction with the release of today’s report, the CWA is calling on Apple to cease working with Littler Mendelsohn and adopt a policy of trade union neutrality. Microsoft recently adopted a similar policy of not interfering with employees’ right to organize. The policy allowed 300 employees of ZeniMax, the gaming division within Microsoft, to voluntarily gain union recognition.

An Apple spokesperson declined to comment by press time when contacted before publication.