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Apple could owe thousands in back pay to 12,000 female employees.

Apple has spent years "intentionally, knowingly, and deliberately paying women less than men for substantially similar work," a proposed class action lawsuit filed in California on Thursday alleged.

A victory for women suing could mean that more than 12,000 current and former female employees in California could collectively claw back potentially millions in lost wages from an apparently ever-widening wage gap allegedly perpetuated by Apple policies.

The lawsuit was filed by two employees who have each been with Apple for more than a decade, Justina Jong and Amina Salgado. They claimed that Apple violated California employment laws between 2020 and 2024 by unfairly discriminating against California-based female employees in Apple’s engineering, marketing, and AppleCare divisions and "systematically" paying women "lower compensation than men with similar education and experience."

Apple allegedly has displayed an ongoing bias toward male employees, offering them higher starting salaries and promoting them for the "same behaviors" that female employees allegedly were punished for.

Jong, currently a customer/technical training instructor on Apple's global developer relations/app review team, said that she only became aware of a stark pay disparity by chance.

"One day, I saw a W-2 left on the office printer," Jong said. "It belonged to my male colleague, who has the same job position. I noticed that he was being paid almost $10,000 more than me, even though we performed substantially similar work. This revelation made me feel terrible."

But Salgado had long been aware of the problem. Salgado, currently on a temporary assignment as a development manager in the AppleCare division, spent years complaining about her lower wages, prompting Apple internal investigations that never led to salary increases.

Finally, late last year, Salgado's insistence on fair pay was resolved after Apple hired a third-party firm that concluded she was "paid less than men performing substantially similar work." Apple subsequently increased her pay rate but dodged responsibility for back pay that Salgado now seeks to recover.

Eve Cervantez, a lawyer for women suing, said in a press release shared with Ars that these women were put in "a no-win situation."

"Once women are hired into a lower pay range at Apple, subsequent pay raises or any bonuses are tracked accordingly, meaning they don’t correct the gender pay gap," Cervantez said. "Instead, they perpetuate and widen the gap because raises and bonuses are based on a percentage of the employee’s base salary.”

Apple did not immediately respond to Ars' request to comment.

Lawsuit: Apple mostly only rewards male “talent”

According to the complaint, several of Apple's policies favoring men have further entrenched the alleged pay gap. That includes Apple's performance evaluation system, which women suing alleged rewarded men in categories such as teamwork and leadership but "penalized" women for excelling in those areas.

Apple also seemingly has "a policy or practice of selecting individuals who have 'talent' and compensating those persons more highly than other employees." But neither Jong nor Salgado—although both have held various leadership roles—were ever designated as "talent" deserving of a pay increase, the lawsuit said. They've alleged that this Apple policy is biased against women, more often rewarding male "talent" while female talent goes unacknowledged.

"More men are identified as having talent," the complaint said.

Separately, Jong has also alleged that Apple subjected her to a hostile work environment after a senior member of her team, Blaine Weilert, sexually harassed her. After she complained, Apple investigated and Weilert reportedly admitted to touching her "in a sexually suggestive manner without her consent," the complaint said. Apple then disciplined Weilert but ultimately would not allow Jong to escape the hostile work environment, requiring that she work with Weilert on different projects. Apple later promoted Weilert.

As a result of Weilert's promotion, the complaint said that Apple placed Weilert in a desk "sitting adjacent" to Jong's in Apple’s offices. Following a request to move her desk, a manager allegedly "questioned" Jong's "willingness to perform her job and collaborate" with Weilert, advising that she be “professional, respectful, and collaborative,” rather than honoring her request for a non-hostile workplace.

This experience, Jong alleged, caused her "profound emotional distress and mental anguish"—including PTSD, depression, anxiety, and insomnia—and required her to take a medical leave that only ended when Weilert left her team of his own volition. Jong has continued to suffer from PTSD since rejoining Apple, where she alleged her career has since "stalled."

Because California laws, as well as the federal Equal Pay Act, require that "women and men are paid equally for performing substantially similar work," women suing have asked California's Superior Court in San Francisco to intervene. They're hoping a jury will agree that Apple must be stopped from alleged "immoral, unethical, oppressive, unscrupulous, and offensive" business practices.

Apple globally is a 65 percent male company, but its diversity data boasts that women have been promoted to more leadership roles within the past decade. The company has policies against harassment, discrimination, and retaliation that women claim it is violating.

But in recent years, Apple has been mired in worker complaints, triggering a labor department investigation over hiring, pay, and working conditions in 2021. Then last year, after an expose by the Financial Times revealed that Apple had dismissed misconduct claims from 15 current and former female employees, Apple agreed that it "should have handled" their complaints "differently."

"As a result, we will make changes to our training and processes," Apple's spokesperson told FT in 2022.

The current class action has alleged that Apple continues to ignore complaints that the company culture fosters an unfair and hostile workplace for women. It's hard to estimate how much Apple might owe in back pay and other damages should women suing win, but it could easily add up if all 12,000 class members were paid thousands less than male counterparts over the complaint's approximately four-year span. Apple could also be on the hook for hundreds in civil penalties per class member per pay period between 2020 and 2024.

"The longer a woman works at Apple, the larger the gap in compensation she receives compared to similarly situated men," the proposed class action alleged.