Nearly 300 current and former Apple employees have done so published an open letter alleging that several of the company’s retail and corporate employees have been punished or “wrongfully dismissed” for showing support for the Palestinian people through pins, bracelets or keffiyeh.
The group, which calls itself Apples4Ceasefire, is schedule a protest outside the Apple store in Lincoln Park, Chicago, Saturday. In a podcast published last week with media outlet Palestine in America, the group alleges that a Palestinian store employee at that location was wrongfully fired for wearing clothing and accessories that showed support for the Palestinian people. The podcast episode also delves into the letter’s allegations, making detailed claims about multiple Apple employees facing retaliation from managers.
The group’s letter, which was also released last week, also calls on Apple CEO Tim Cook and other executives to address the many deaths in Gaza caused by the Israeli assault on the territory in response to the October 7 Hamas attacks. acknowledge. Cook sent an email to Apple employees two days after the Hamas attack expressing condolences for those who died or were bereaved, the letter said. It adds that “after more than 150 days of violence against innocent Palestinian lives, no message has been sent expressing the same kind of concern for them.”
Apple did not respond to comment in time for publication.
About 1,200 people were killed in Hamas’s attacks on Israel on October 7, according to the Israeli government. The UN reported this last week that more than 32,000 Palestinians have been killed since the conflict began, based on data from the Gaza Ministry of Health.
Tariq Ra’ouf, a tech expert at an Apple store in Seattle who helped organize the Apples4Ceasefire campaign, says the vast majority of people who signed the letter are retail workers at Apple, with several dozen signatories in business functions such as product management or software development. About 55 signatories identified themselves as former employees. The signatories come from cities around the world, including Chicago; St. Petersburg; London; and Apple’s home base of Cupertino, California.
“Apple says they want to make the world a better place,” Ra’ouf says. “This is a rare, historic opportunity to actually do the work to make the world a better place.”
Business dissatisfaction
Apple isn’t the only tech giant where employees have demanded executives show more recognition or support for Palestinians since the start of the latest conflict between Israel and Hamas.
On March 4, more than 600 Google employees signed a petition demanding the company withdraw its sponsorship of an Israeli technology conference in New York, while dozens of employees protested outside the event. A Google Cloud software engineer interrupted a talk at the conference Google’s director for Israelcalling for an end to Google’s work with the Israeli government under Project Nimbus.
Employees have noted that Nimbus instruments are capable of mass surveillance, but neither Google nor the Israeli government have publicly stated that Nimbus is used for that purpose. The employee was forcibly removed from the event and subsequently fired by Google the same week.