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Tim Cook tried to allay growing employee concerns at an all-company meeting on Friday, The New York Times reported.
The Times obtained a recording of the meeting. He also spoke to employee activists who said they were disappointed because Cook only answered two of several questions they had wanted to ask the CEO.
The questions Cook answered concerned pay equity and Apple’s approach to Texas law preventing people from having abortions after six weeks of pregnancy.
After Cook received the pay equity question, Apple’s head of human resources, Deirdre O’Brien, said the company regularly checks for gaps in its compensation practices.
“When we find gaps, which we do sometimes, we fill them,” O’Brien said, according to The Times.
Cook was asked how the company is protecting its employees from Texas’ new abortion law. In response, he said the company is looking to see if it can help mount legal challenges against the law.
He also said the company’s medical insurance would cover employees in Texas if they had to travel out of state to get an abortion.
Employee activist Janneke Parrish told The Times that during the meeting’s discussion on the company’s internal Slack bulletin board, some employees said they were impressed with Cook’s responses, but she was disappointed.
Parrish said she submitted a question asking what specific steps Apple has taken to narrow the pay gap and achieve parity for women and people of color in securing promotions. However, the question did not find an answer.
Apple did not immediately respond to Insider when contacted for comment. In a statement to The Times, he said, “We are and always have been deeply committed to creating and maintaining a positive and inclusive workplace.”
“We take all concerns seriously and thoroughly investigate whenever a concern is raised and, out of respect for the privacy of everyone involved, we do not discuss specific employee matters,” a- he added.
Although Apple has historically had a reputation for keeping it a secret, more and more employees have spoken publicly about the company recently. In August, 15 employees created a website for their colleagues to share their experiences of harassment and discrimination in the company.
Earlier this month, Apple fired engineer Ashley Gjøvik who had spoken publicly on Twitter about allegations of harassment at the company.
Gjøvik wrote in an article for Insider that she was accused of refusing to comply with a request from the company’s “Employee Relations Threats Assessment and Workplace Violence” team.
She said she agreed to comply with the request, but only in writing, as she had filed a complaint with the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) and an investigation was underway.
Read the original article on Business Insider
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