Apple CEO Tim Cook addresses workplace issues, pay equity, more in all-hands meeting

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  • Reply 21 of 28
    sdw2001 said:
    Not to make this expressly political per se, but this is what happens. The left eats itself. Apple is probably one of the most progressive employers in the world. The notion that there is some massive problem in gender and racial equity doesn’t even pass the smell test. 
    And the right eats the Capitolio. Amen jayzzuuuzzzz
  • Reply 22 of 28
    Marvin said:
    Usually there's not a massive problem, nowadays people are eviscerated over getting anything less than A+ on the purity tests. In fact, people can even get A+ and the lived reality of other people who believe otherwise is enough to fall below expectations.

    Say there are 4 software engineers with the same role, Simon (white male) gets $110k/year, Craig (white male) gets $100k, Rebecca (white female) gets $102k, Sarah (minority female) gets $103k.

    Even the survey done by the employees only found a 5-6% gap:

    And it's not like Apple isn't doing anything or is against it, they have a whole page with animated charts about it:

    Snip

    Apple's been at this game a long time and has employed a lot of people over the years and they can see through people's nonsense. No company can ever be free from issues between employees, they are people like everyone else and there are no rules that can ever adequately make a working environment anywhere near ideal for everyone but they clearly have a process that is working well for the vast majority of their over 100k employees worldwide.
    Every one is a capitalist in America, from an office clerk, to a waitress to the janitor—arguing passionately, at length, and endlessly for their continued exploitation. 

    I’m not responding directly to your post. Still, it’s incredible how dismissive you (plural) are of people fighting for better pay and working conditions. As if the squeeze and daily struggle of workers in the US ain’t happening at all. I’ve seen posts calling these people “union thugs,” saying: “If they don’t like it, move on.” First, most people can’t just leave their jobs. Second, taken to its logical conclusion, no job need ever be improved, and nobody can complain about pay. The economic figures are indisputable: since Reagan all economic gains in the US have been diverted to the rich while the middle class and poor have been squeezed. But sure, continue to demean the working folks while being a shill for the rich and powerful. 
    muthuk_vanalingam
  • Reply 23 of 28
    Apple needs to stay out of politics. 

    If Texas wants to outlaw killing babies, that’s fine. States have governing authority. 

    If texas wants to ensure election integrity to secure that my voice is actually my voice and that it is heard, then that’s great! It’s so strange how the left wants me to not be able to travel without my medical history on my passport ID. But they want to push for me to vote without proving who I am via ID. Unbelievable.

    Apple just needs to worry about making the best products and taking care of their workers. Stay out of politics and moral issues that you may be on the wrong side about. 

    If they want to pull out of Texas over a moral difference but stay in China despite gross human rights abuse and spying, then hey, go ahead snd show your true colors. 

    This is "politics for dummies," isn't it?
    1. Killing babies? Have you got any idea of what you re talking about? Oh, and do you care at all about real babies who are actually born? (I didn't think so, either.)
    2. Election integrity? You mean, for elections that are overwhelmingly fair and accurate? … with minuscule amounts of fraud ever detected?  When voters turn away from your party, now you're suddenly worried? How is, laser-targeting one demographic to dissuade them from voting, about integrity?

    tht
  • Reply 24 of 28
    MarvinMarvin Posts: 15,309moderator
    Alex_V said:
    Every one is a capitalist in America, from an office clerk, to a waitress to the janitor—arguing passionately, at length, and endlessly for their continued exploitation. 

    I’m not responding directly to your post. Still, it’s incredible how dismissive you (plural) are of people fighting for better pay and working conditions. As if the squeeze and daily struggle of workers in the US ain’t happening at all. I’ve seen posts calling these people “union thugs,” saying: “If they don’t like it, move on.” First, most people can’t just leave their jobs. Second, taken to its logical conclusion, no job need ever be improved, and nobody can complain about pay. The economic figures are indisputable: since Reagan all economic gains in the US have been diverted to the rich while the middle class and poor have been squeezed. But sure, continue to demean the working folks while being a shill for the rich and powerful. 
    The most vocal of these particular working folk are the rich, just like the multi-millionaire actresses that go on about pay gaps. Many of them only need to work at Apple a few years to become a millionaire and retire for life and they are arguing about issues they aren't even justifying. Some are clearly trying to manufacture viable lawsuits by being antagonistic to management and documenting everything to try and score a payout. They come up with the usual nonsense that modern generations think are issues like tone-policing, mansplaining, micro-aggressions, unchecked privilege, gaslighting, involuntary involvement in nerf wars (some of them reported this and is probably the most legitimate complaint), negligible variations in salaries, the requirement to medically prove you are disabled and when the HR dept rightfully dismisses their nonsense, they claim they aren't being heard. They were heard and the response is they're talking nonsense and they don't want to accept that so instead of stomping off to their room, they stomp off to twitter and try to rally an army of other entitled brats to try and get their way. The parents of these upcoming generations have so much to answer for.

    There are legitimate issues in the modern workplace but they affect legitimately underpaid, overworked, exploited people who aren't these people. They, like many people today, are misusing legitimate issues as a way of harassing people and companies for their own gain. They use phrases like 'good trouble' to describe how they behave, this phrase was used by John Lewis about protesting being physically beaten for the color of his skin. They use phrases like AppleToo, as if what they are talking about is like the MeToo movement about the violation of women's rights and bodies at the hands of abusers.

    Some of the requests seem justified like privacy on personal devices but this would also allow employees to take pictures of Apple projects for money and be free from investigation. The right not to have personal belongings searched enables theft of expensive Apple parts and is like the defunding of law enforcement movement, which is supported by criminals. They request the ability to hold HR accountable so that if they don't follow up on their nonsense claims they will try to get them fired.

    Some of the reported complaints that had been sent to leadership were about Apple not taking sides on political issues like on the Palestine/Israel conflict. The ad guy that was fired supposedly because of something innocuous he had written years ago was very openly pro-Israel and Jewish, while many of the complainants had pro-Palestine messages in their feeds and the letter sent to management demanding support for Palestine was sent just a couple of weeks after he was fired. Some other employees have reported instances of antisemitism.

    Apple has to be very careful about not enabling abusive employees under the guise of workers rights. They demand more changes in leadership so they can get more leverage. If any of these people made it into SVP roles, they'd wreck that company.

    There was a report from a male employee complaining about being fired due to a wrongful sexual harassment claim from female work colleagues. Cases like these are rarely clear cut about who is in the right:

    https://medium.com/appletoo/appletoo-digest-2-bb06e560392e

    Workplace issues are typically about issues between employees so this narrative about the workers vs the corporation is disingenuous. It's workers vs workers and the corporation is trying to manage everyone's conflicting interests. Every losing side has a complaint to share.

    As much as employees have a right to request fair treatment, they don't own the company and the company isn't accountable to them, the company is accountable to the law and very little of what the employees have written about justifies how they are behaving. The volume and severity of the reports is minuscule for the size of the company. It all comes across as another example of modern day manufactured outrage by attention-seeking social media inhabitants.
  • Reply 25 of 28
    Marvin said:
    The most vocal of these particular working folk are the rich, just like the multi-millionaire actresses that go on about pay gaps.

    snip

    The volume and severity of the reports is minuscule for the size of the company. It all comes across as another example of modern day manufactured outrage by attention-seeking social media inhabitants.

    One-sided tosh. Conservatives like to say that only Hollywood stars complain about capitalist exploitation. They paint them as “out-of-touch elites,” to diminish what they say in the minds of the people they are advocating for. Cleverly turning the class struggle upside-down: “Don’t listen, it’s really the Republicans and the billionaires who are on your side.” First, are the actors not morally compelled to say something about injustice, just as anyone else? Second, should they not use their platform? Who else is on TV in your celebrity-obsessed country? How often does guy-who-sleeps-under-the-bridge get invited to a talk show? 

    Your biased opinion about the Apple complaints aside… I’ll give more credence to the complainants. BTW: I’m sure there’s a good job for you at Amazon’s union-busting department. 
    muthuk_vanalingam
  • Reply 26 of 28
    MarvinMarvin Posts: 15,309moderator
    Alex_V said:
    One-sided tosh. Conservatives like to say that only Hollywood stars complain about capitalist exploitation. They paint them as “out-of-touch elites,” to diminish what they say in the minds of the people they are advocating for. Cleverly turning the class struggle upside-down: “Don’t listen, it’s really the Republicans and the billionaires who are on your side.” First, are the actors not morally compelled to say something about injustice, just as anyone else? Second, should they not use their platform? Who else is on TV in your celebrity-obsessed country? How often does guy-who-sleeps-under-the-bridge get invited to a talk show?
    Millionaires and billionaires on the left or right advocate for others in words, not actions. They align themselves with the underprivileged to get what they want. We have a closed economic system, the rich getting rich causes the poor to stay poor. Wealth inequality is about unfair distribution of wealth, it's not possible for the rich to get richer and the poor to get richer at the same time without increasing the supply of money. Things hardly ever change for the better for the people genuinely at the bottom despite the claims of progress whenever the privileged manage to further improve their status. Every company has a budget, when a millionaire actress 'breaks down barriers' and manages to push for a few million more to fight 'injustice', that budget gets taken away from the people doing their makeup and results in fewer jobs, stagnated wages, poorer working conditions for the people at the bottom.

    The rich never caused the recent changes to wages due to the pandemic, that was workers directly making a decision that what companies were offering wasn't good enough.
    Alex_V said:
    I’ll give more credence to the complainants.
    Complainants aren't automatically credible just because people are biased against big companies. It's clear to see most of their claims aren't credible, they are filled with vague references and generic soundbites and a lot of them are he said/she said conflicts, which nobody else knows anything about besides the people directly involved. They've been complaining for months now and have only collected dozens of vague stories. Apple has 160,000 employees and have been operating for more than 40 years, there would be a deluge of reports if the claims were credible in any broad sense.
    Alex_V said:
    I’m sure there’s a good job for you at Amazon’s union-busting department. 
    Amazon is an example of genuine exploitation that needs to be sorted out. The nature of their business is that profit increases through improved efficiency in logistics and that directly comes with a human cost. The same applies to some of the companies that Apple uses to make their products. These overpaid complainers are not them and aren't representing them. These are people making hundreds of thousands of dollars per year complaining that they think they aren't getting paid enough and they don't even know for sure because they don't know everyone else's salaries. They are demanding the authority to be able to ensure nobody is being paid more than them and they don't have a right to do that. Furthermore, this is the typical amalgamation of unrelated issues that stemmed from a few selfish employees who complained about things nobody would side with them on (like pretending to be disabled) so they stir it in with other issues to try and get their way.

    Conflating genuine issues that affect people at the bottom of the social ladder with things like this just serves to undermine them.
  • Reply 27 of 28
    gatorguygatorguy Posts: 24,176member
    davgreg said:
    As a customer and shareholder, I would prefer Apple announce it is pulling all non retail operations from Texas as soon as possible until they stop suppressing the voting and health rights of its people. 
    Plenty of better places to do business. 
    With the $Billions in investments and the multiple facilities they've built they've made in Texas (some that fly under the radar) and the very favorable tax benefits they've been given to do so it ain't happinin'. Business is business, and "feel good" isn't generally getting in the way of it. 
  • Reply 28 of 28
    Marvin said:
    Millionaires and billionaires on the left or right advocate for others in words, not actions. They align themselves with the underprivileged to get what they want. 
    At the heart of this point is "whataboutism." In other words, Someone cannot be an advocate for the poor unless they give all their money away. Similarly, no one can be an environmentalist because they drive a car, or fly on holiday, or wear synthetics, or breathe out, or whatever. Sure, I have eaten fast food, but it doesn't mean that I cannot support those workers when they go on strike for better wages, even though I may pay more for my burger if they succeed. Your argument ignores the ‘systemic’ nature of these problems—things are interrelated. There is nowhere outside of the system for someone to stand and criticise it.
    Marvin said:
    Millionaires and billionaires on the left or right advocate for others in words, not actions. They align themselves with the underprivileged to get what they want. We have a closed economic system, the rich getting rich causes the poor to stay poor. Wealth inequality is about unfair distribution of wealth, it's not possible for the rich to get richer and the poor to get richer at the same time without increasing the supply of money. Things hardly ever change for the better for the people genuinely at the bottom despite the claims of progress whenever the privileged manage to further improve their status
    You are talking about a ‘zero-sum game,’ that the economic pie is a certain size, and therefore it's about who gets what share. Economics is not like that. Take trade: the idea is that by freeing up trade everyone gets better off. When the talk is about benefitting the poor, conservative politicians want us to believe the system is zero-sum. “How will we pay for it?” When the talk is about wars or benefitting the rich (lower taxes etc.) suddenly there are no sums :D  It's well known that if a government wants to inject money into the economy, the fastest way is through the pockets of the poor, either in wages or other benefits. Because of their great need, they spend it right away, oiling the engine of the economy. The most famous example is the New Deal. And, studies have shown that the poor tend to spend money in surprising ways, but wisely—because they have to. 
    Every company has a budget, when a millionaire actress 'breaks down barriers' and manages to push for a few million more to fight 'injustice', that budget gets taken away from the people doing their makeup and results in fewer jobs, stagnated wages, poorer working conditions for the people at the bottom.
    Silly example. As I've alluded to above, the pie gets bigger in a thriving economy. Which means more people have money. The opposite is a contraction in money supply, known as a ‘recession.’ 
    The rich never caused the recent changes to wages due to the pandemic, that was workers directly making a decision that what companies were offering wasn't good enough.
    We agree.
    Complainants aren't automatically credible just because people are biased against big companies. 
    I'll give them the benefit of the doubt.
    Amazon is an example of genuine exploitation that needs to be sorted out. The nature of their business is that profit increases through improved efficiency in logistics and that directly comes with a human cost. The same applies to some of the companies that Apple uses to make their products.
    We agree.
    These overpaid complainers are not them and aren't representing them. These are people making hundreds of thousands of dollars per year complaining that they think they aren't getting paid enough and they don't even know for sure because they don't know everyone else's salaries.
    If the market has set their wages, they are by definition not overpaid. I hear that living and working in Silicon Valley has become astonishingly expensive. Again, I give them the benefit of the doubt.
    muthuk_vanalingam
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