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Fired Apple employee gets green light to sue the tech giant

Former Apple employee Ashely Gjovik has the green light to sue after alleged retaliatory measures for airing workplace safety concerns.

TJ Denzer

September 13, 2021 11:45 AM

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As Apple continues to remain quiet through alleged issues of workplace harassment, toxcitiy, and employee rights issues, more continue to emerge. The company has been pulled into the spotlight with little answer for some time now and more stories continue to come out. In fact, one of the apparent victims of poor Apple workplace practices has been given the greenlight to sue the company over retaliatory actions that led to their firing.

Ashely Gjovik was just authorized to sue the Apple company by the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) and California's Department of Fair Employment & Housing (DFEH), as reported recently by Apple Insider. While many anonymous stories have come out via the #AppleToo website and movement, Gjovik opted to share her story separately on another site. It details her reports of a potential hazardous waste contamination and worker compensation claim and alleged retaliatory nature of Apple’s response. While Apple apparently tried to bring the matter to official worker channels, it didn’t solve anything and instead made the matter worse, pushing Gjovik to go to the US National Labor Relations board with a complaint. That led to Apple terminating her employment for sharing “confidential product-related information.”

With the green light from the EEOC and DFEH, Gjovik now finds herself in a position to be able to bring a private lawsuit against the company for retaliatory measures and wrongful firing. It’s the latest in a growing pile of open issues Apple has faced regarding workplace toxicity, harassment, and discrimination. In addition to #AppleToo, the company also came under fire for recently terminating an in-company Slack channel relating to pay equality on the grounds of violating loosely-enforced Slack group rules.  

With current and former employees stepping forth to share their mistreatment under Apple employment, it still remains to be seen if the company will respond to any of it. As we continue to follow this story and others, stay tuned here at Shacknews.

TJ Denzer

Senior News Editor

TJ Denzer is a player and writer with a passion for games that has dominated a lifetime. He found his way to the Shacknews roster in late 2019 and has worked his way to Senior News Editor since. Between news coverage, he also aides notably in livestream projects like the indie game-focused Indie-licious, the Shacknews Stimulus Games, and the Shacknews Dump. You can reach him at tj.denzer@shacknews.com and also find him on Twitter @JohnnyChugs.