Apple has been feeling the heat lately when it comes to its employees and internal matters. One of the more-known examples is the case with now-former senior engineering program manager Ashley Gjøvik.
Gjøvik has been tweeting allegations at Apple—all the way since March—about workplace safety, surveillance, and harassment. The most recent development in her story with the Cupertino-based company is her recent firing for supposedly violating rules about leaking confidential information.
It started with a raised concern about her workplace, which was located on a waste-contaminated property. Immediately after her complaint, however, Gjøvik claims to have been met with ‘retaliation and intimidation,’ so she prepared herself for things to escalate.
“I’m disappointed that a company I have loved since I was a little girl would treat their employees this way,” she says.
While the situation with waste contamination mentioned above is alarming, the other allegations from the former Apple employee are even more so. She states to have experienced harassment and bullying from her manager and other members of her team. She has also expressed privacy concerns with Apple’s policies on surveying employee work phones.
Sooo, #Apple has pics of my boobs. During a discovery thing 3yr ago, legal forced me to hand-over all my texts. They refused to let me delete anything, even “fully personal,” even when I said “by fully personal I mean nudes.” They said they’re in their “permanent evidence locker”
— Ashley M. Gjøvik (@ashleygjovik) August 19, 2021
After months of allegations at Apple, Ashley Gjøvik received an email from Apple employee relations on September 9, saying that they wanted to contact her as soon as possible regarding a sensitive Intellectual Property matter.Gjøvik responded that she would be happy to talk as long as all communications were put in writing and noted she was forwarding the correspondence along to the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB), where she had filed a charge.
In their response, employee relations said that she is suspended from all access to Apple systems, based on her choice not to participate in the discussion and the ‘seriousness of these allegations.’ Later, Gjøvik received another email letting her know that her employment at Apple was being terminated, effective the next day.
The case of Ashley Gjøvik is not an isolated one. The #AppleToo movement has shown that other employees at Apple have allegedly also gone through similar experiences in their time working for the tech giant.
In a statement to The Verge, Apple representative Josh Rosenstock said:
We are and have always been deeply committed to creating and maintaining a positive and inclusive workplace. We take all concerns seriously and we thoroughly investigate whenever a concern is raised and, out of respect for the privacy of any individuals involved, we do not discuss specific employee matters.
