Apple Inc. was sued by two female employees who claim it “systemically” pays women less than their male counterparts for similar work, and who are seeking to represent thousands of other women facing the same alleged discrimination.
They claim that Apple, of Cupertino, California, determined starting salaries before 2018 by asking employees for their compensation history and that this practice “perpetuated historic pay disparities between men and women.”
Then, when California outlawed the practice, the iPhone maker started asking for salary expectations, entrenching the disparity, the women claim.
“Apple’s policy and practice of collecting such information about pay expectations and using that information to set starting salaries has had a disparate impact on women, and Apple’s failure to pay women and men equal wages for performing substantially similar work is simply not justified under the law,” Joe Sellers, a lawyer at Cohen Milstein Sellers & Toll PLLC representing the employees, said in a statement.
Contents
Glimpse of a W-2
The two employees, Justina Jong and Amina Salgado, also claim that in performance reviews, men at Apple routinely get higher scores on teamwork and leadership, resulting in lower bonuses and pay for the women.
Jong realized she was being paid about $10,000 less than a male colleague only after she saw his W-2 form on the office printer, according to the statement.
A representative of Apple didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment on the suit, filed Thursday in California state court.
Lawsuits claiming pay discrimination against women in the tech industry have sometimes ended in substantial settlements that nonetheless can work out to a paycheck or two per person. The lawyers who filed Thursday’s suit include those who have brought similar claims against Oracle Corp. and Google and won average per-person payouts of $3,750 and $5,500, respectively, after legal costs.
12,000 employees
Jong and Salgado filed the suit…
