Rev. Jesse Jackson & Rainbow PUSH Coalition praise Apple for releasing detailed workforce diversity

Posted:
in General Discussion edited July 2015
Following Apple's publication of workforce diversity data, as well as comments from the company admitting that improvements are needed, the iPhone maker received praise from activist the Rev. Jesse Jackson and his nonprofit Rainbow PUSH Coalition, which advocates on behalf of minorities.

Jesse Jackson


In a press release issued Tuesday, Jackson revealed he called Apple Chief Executive Tim Cook's office to "personally commend him for stepping up to the plate." He and Rainbow PUSH plan to use the data as part of a public forum this fall to discuss ways to improve diversity within Silicon Valley companies.

Jackson said the announcement shows Cook's "personal commitment and his leadership" in action at Apple. The reverend also encouraged Cook to "take further bold steps to make Apple better, and leverage his leadership to make the whole industry better."

The organization noted that although Apple itself admitted it must improve, the iPhone maker actually has a slightly more diverse workforce than other tech companies that have released their own employee data. Rainbow PUSH also praised Apple for breaking down its numbers by technical and non-technical jobs --?something other companies have not done.

"Diversity and inclusion is good for business," the group said. "African Americans, Latinos, and women represent money, market, talent and location. Inclusion is the key to growth, and when there is growth everybody wins. Let's expand the marketplace of opportunity."




Jackson and his organization began targeting Apple and others in March, encouraging Silicon Valley giants to participated in a racial diversity campaign. His efforts have been to draw awareness to the lack of racial diversity in the ranks of top-tier tech firms.

Prior to that, Apple was also under fire for the lack of diversity on its executive team and board of directors. The company responded by publicly committing to increase diversity, and also tweaking its corporate charter to reflect that. And last month, Apple added Susan Wagner to its board of directors, adding a new female presence to the board alongside Andrea Jung.

And last month, Cook promised that Apple would release data on corporate diversity, while also remaining focused on taking action to improve its workforce. Apple quickly followed through on that promise with the data published earlier Tuesday, revealing that its global employee base is 70 percent male, while 64 percent of the company's U.S.-based leadership positions are held by whites.

Cook published a note with the statistics, publicly stating that he is "not satisfied with the numbers." The CEO said his company has been working for some time to improve its workforce diversity, and though progress has been made, he said there's more that Apple must do.
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Comments

  • Reply 1 of 98

    Ooh... this is not going to be a pleasant thread.... :D (added smiley)

  • Reply 2 of 98
    rogifanrogifan Posts: 10,669member
    How did Apple creat great products like the Mac, iPod, iPhone, iPad, iTunes, OSX, iOS etc. with a mostly white male workforce?
  • Reply 3 of 98
    Jackson 2016?
  • Reply 4 of 98
    sflocalsflocal Posts: 6,092member
    Quote:

    Originally Posted by anantksundaram View Post

     

    Ooh... this is not going to be a pleasant thread....




    I'll be more than happy to start it...

     

    Media-whore Jesse Jackson can kiss my Mexican-American (i.e. "Minority") ass.  That guy is the poster-child for hypocrisy and double-standards.  If Martin Luther King were alive today, he'd be shaking his head in disappointment at how Jesse desecrated the memory and work of MLK.



    I firmly believe a lot of the problems we have with racism today can be directly pinpointed to the constant hate-mongering that Jesse instills in the African-American community.  To him, it's an "Us-against-them" mentality instead of "We the People".   Shame on him.  I absolutely cannot stand this guy.

  • Reply 5 of 98
    jungmarkjungmark Posts: 6,926member
    rogifan wrote: »
    How did Apple creat great products like the Mac, iPod, iPhone, iPad, iTunes, OSX, iOS etc. with a mostly white male workforce?

    Steve Jobs, who was half Syrian.
  • Reply 6 of 98
    rogifanrogifan Posts: 10,669member
    jungmark wrote: »
    Steve Jobs, who was half Syrian.
    By birth. Did he grow up with any Syrian influence in his life?
  • Reply 7 of 98
    jungmarkjungmark Posts: 6,926member
    Jesse hasn't found a camera he didn't like.
  • Reply 8 of 98
    yojimbo007yojimbo007 Posts: 1,165member
    US population 69% white
    Apple white employees 55%
    Whites are underrepresented .....lol
  • Reply 9 of 98
    jungmarkjungmark Posts: 6,926member
    rogifan wrote: »
    By birth. Did he grow up with any Syrian influence in his life?

    Are you saying if he didn't grow up "white", he wouldn't be successful? Genes count as well as upbringing.
  • Reply 10 of 98
    sflocal wrote: »

    I'll be more than happy to start it...

     
    Media-whore Jesse Jackson can kiss my Mexican-American (i.e. "Minority") ass.  That guy is the poster-child for hypocrisy and double-standards.  If Martin Luther King were alive today, he'd be shaking his head in disappointment at how Jesse desecrated the memory and work of MLK.


    I firmly believe a lot of the problems we have with racism today can be directly pinpointed to the constant hate-mongering that Jesse instills in the African-American community.  To him, it's an "Us-against-them" mentality instead of "We the People".   Shame on him.  I absolutely cannot stand this guy.
    Well said! Jackson has been working his pattened brand of extortion for decades and it pains me to see Apple cowtowing to it.
  • Reply 11 of 98
    tallest skiltallest skil Posts: 43,388member
    Originally Posted by jungmark View Post

    Genes count as well as upbringing.



    Ah, but I’ve just been told that there are no differences between races, so his “minority genes” don’t matter.

  • Reply 12 of 98
    SpamSandwichSpamSandwich Posts: 33,407member

    I guess we just found out which a**hole was behind this pandering move by Apple.

  • Reply 13 of 98
    Quote:

    Originally Posted by jungmark View Post





    Are you saying if he didn't grow up "white", he wouldn't be successful? Genes count as well as upbringing.



    I read the original comment more as: how did Apple create these great products in the past when they weren't putting so much effort into being diverse? (Rhetorical question, with the answer being something along the lines of, it's not the diversity that counts, it's the talent.)

     

    Then the answer came that it was Steve Jobs who created them, but Steve Jobs was basically another white majority male, and this whole topic would try to make you believe that he can't have made a good product without having some African or Chinese or more X genes in him. So it wasn't saying if he wasn't white, he wouldn't be successful, it was the opposite - despite being white, he did pretty well, no?

     

    At least, that's how I read it.

  • Reply 14 of 98
    SpamSandwichSpamSandwich Posts: 33,407member
    Quote:

    Originally Posted by jungmark View Post



    Jesse hasn't found a camera he didn't like.

     

    Or a big, successful company he hasn't wanted to lean on.

  • Reply 15 of 98
    rogifanrogifan Posts: 10,669member
    jungmark wrote: »
    Are you saying if he didn't grow up "white", he wouldn't be successful? Genes count as well as upbringing.
    Where did I imply that?
  • Reply 16 of 98
    apple ][apple ][ Posts: 9,233member
    What a disgusting extortionist and race hustler.
  • Reply 17 of 98
    sog35 wrote: »
    Jackson a minority likes Cooks press release.

    White guys on this board don't like Cooks press release.

    hmmm.

    very interesting.
    very. 5.5.
    That's hardlly the case. Jackson is a well-known extortionist and race-baiter who uses threats & intimidation to further his agenda which has NOTHING to do with racial harmony or diversity.
  • Reply 18 of 98
    Quote:

    Originally Posted by Lord Amhran View Post





    Well said! Jackson has been working his pattened brand of extortion for decades and it pains me to see Apple cowtowing to it.

    Maybe someone can convince the courts to overturn his patent. Prior art, or something similar...

     

    (P.S., It's "kowtow" with a "k".)

  • Reply 19 of 98
    gatorguygatorguy Posts: 24,176member

    Rainbow PUSH also praised Apple for breaking down its numbers by technical and non-technical jobs --?something other companies have not done.

    He's not reading what the companies are announcing then.

    For instance Intel has a very detailed diversity breakdown and apparently has reported it for several years:
    http://www.intel.com/content/dam/www/public/us/en/documents/corporate-information/equal-employment-opportunity-employer-info-report.pdf

    Google is another who released a detailed breakdown back in May.
    http://www.google.com/diversity/at-google.html#tab=leadership

    Facebook too breaks down the figures by tech/non-tech/management
    http://newsroom.fb.com/news/2014/06/building-a-more-diverse-facebook/

    Not good numbers to be sure but others have already commented on some of the problems finding qualified minorities. It begins with schools. Of course Intel and Google numbers aren't directly comparable to Apples as they both lack a retail store sales force which would be expected to be a little more diverse than the tech side.
  • Reply 20 of 98
    allenbfallenbf Posts: 993member

    I was wondering how long it would take Jackson to wade in.

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