Apple faced a lawsuit from employees Justina Jong and Amina Salgado, alleging the company systematically pays women less than men for the same job. They claimed Apple sets starting salaries based on employees’ previous pay, perpetuating historical gender pay gaps.
A lawyer representing the employees said, “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.”
The women also claimed that during performance evaluations, Apple tends to give higher ratings to men, resulting in lower bonuses and pay for women.
The lawsuit represents over 12,000 current and former female employees across Apple’s engineering, marketing, and AppleCare divisions in California.
Both women have been with Apple for more than ten years, according to the complaint.
They previously raised concerns about pay disparity with Apple several times. Apple conducted an internal investigation but said it couldn’t adjust their pay until an external probe confirmed there was a wage gap.