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.
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.
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.
“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.
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.
