The Financial Times reported that Apple would no longer prohibit its employees from talking about harassment and discrimination in the workplace.
This follows a revision of non-disclosure agreements that previously excluded language regarding discussions of working conditions.
Last year, the company failed to make proposed changes to its non-disclosure provisions. As a result, shareholders voted to approve the independent review.
This was supported by Nia Impact Captial, the Transparency in Employment Agreements (TEA) coalition, and Ifeoma Ozoma, co-sponsor of the Silenced No More Act, which is supposed to protect employees who disclose workplace harassment and discrimination.
Thus Apple employees have the right to speak freely about working conditions, including harassment and discrimination.
This was studied by an independent expert who found that some provisions could be interpreted in a different way, namely as restricting a person’s ability to talk about such behavior. As a result, Apple has pledged not to enforce these restrictions and to make improvements and clarifications in the future. Apple now includes language from California’s “No More Silence” law in severance agreements with employees across the United States.
Many believe it all has to do with former Apple engineer Cher Scarlett leaving the company and accusing it of “coercive and overwhelming activities that allowed for the abuse and harassment of protected concerted activity organizers.”
According to Skyler, Apple didn’t allow her to detail her departure from the company as part of her separation agreement. Then, as a result, a group of treasurers called on the Securities and Exchange Commission to investigate whether Apple was using its NDAs to silence employees.
