Apple accused of restricting workers Slack, social media use by US labor board

Published October 11,2024

Subscribe

The U.S. National Labor Relations board accused Apple of interfering with employees’ rights to collectively advocate for higher working circumstances by limiting their use of social media and office messaging app Slack, the company mentioned on Friday. The NLRB criticism, issued on Thursday, accuses the iPhone maker of sustaining illegal work guidelines across the acceptable makes use of of Slack, illegally firing an worker who advocated for office adjustments on Slack, requiring one other employee to delete a social media publish, and creating the impression that staff have been being surveilled through social media.

This is the second time the NLRB has hit Apple with a criticism this month. Last week, the company accused the corporate of requiring staff nationwide to signal unlawful confidentiality, nondisclosure, and noncompete agreements and of imposing overly broad misconduct and social media insurance policies.

Apple in a press release offered by a spokesperson on Friday mentioned it’s dedicated to sustaining “a positive and inclusive workplace” and takes worker complaints critically.

“We strongly disagree with these claims and will continue to share the facts at the hearing,” the corporate mentioned.

In response to final week’s criticism, Apple denied wrongdoing and mentioned it respects its staff’ rights to debate wages, hours and dealing circumstances.

If Apple doesn’t settle with the NLRB, an administrative decide will maintain an preliminary listening to within the case in February. The decide’s choice will be reviewed by the five-member labor board, whose rulings will be appealed in federal courtroom.

The new case stems from a criticism filed with the NLRB almost three years in the past by Janneke Parrish, who says Apple fired her in 2021 for enjoying a lead position in worker activism.

Parrish used Slack and public social media retailers to advocate for everlasting distant work, distribute a pay fairness survey, element alleged intercourse and race discrimination at Apple and publish open letters essential of the corporate, in keeping with the brand new criticism.

Slack, which permits employees to create group conversations, was rolled out a number of years in the past at Apple and have become more and more standard as a dialogue discussion board through the COVID-19 pandemic.

The NLRB criticism says Apple has a coverage barring employees from creating new Slack channels with out permission from managers. Posts about office issues should be directed to a supervisor or a “People Support” group, in keeping with the criticism.

Parrish’s lawyer, Laurie Burgess, mentioned in an electronic mail on Friday that Apple had engaged in “extensive violations” of employees’ rights.

“We look forward to holding Apple accountable at trial for implementing facially unlawful rules and terminating employees for engaging in the core protected activity of calling out gender discrimination and other civil rights violations that permeated the workplace,” Burgess mentioned.

The criticism seeks an order requiring Apple to rescind its allegedly illegal insurance policies and reimburse Parrish for misplaced earnings and different monetary impacts of her firing.