Apple employee quits alleging harassment at workplace

NT Correspondent

Bengaluru: A few days after a Dalit employee committed suicide alleging caste discrimination at the workplace, an employee of Apple Inc has claimed that he recently quit his job over alleged workplace misconduct, mental harassment, managerial errors and Islamophobia.

A resident of Bengaluru, Khalid Parvez, was a Senior Area Sales Manager at Apple and had worked with the company for over eleven years before he decided to quit. In a LinkedIn post, Parvez said he quit Apple four months ago without another job in hand.

According to him, it all began after he raised a grievance with the HR regarding some serious accusations such as mental harassment, abusive language, possible business misconduct, and Islamophobic comments at the workplace. "I was asked to "trust the system" and was assured of a proper investigation," Parvez said in the social media post.

"All I expected to hear was a few words of compassion - empathising with what I went through and some measures to ensure that it doesn’t happen again. But after two months of supposedly "thorough" investigation the employee relations came back with nothing but denial, insensitivity, counter accusations and ended up ridiculing my mental health and family issues," he said.

According to him, it seemed like the ER (Employee Relations) executive was hellbent on protecting the company and management’s interest. "I was bullied with statements from the ER ridiculing my mental health, saying, "If you want Apple to acknowledge that your mental health issues happened because of Apple - then I'm sorry. We are not medical experts."

"When I asked what if my mental health worsens - the ER replied saying 'In that case, we would need a doctor's certificate to ascertain that you are medically fit to work'," Parvez wrote. He further questioned the claim of the executive about investigating the allegations he had made. "When I asked about the Islamophobic comments - the ER said that none of my statements/incidents were substantiated by other employees.

This is when I understood that there was never an investigation, this was some major corporate cover-up," he said. Parvez said he had two choices - to fight back or to handle a family emergency, and he chose the latter. "Now I had a tough choice. Either fight against these bullies or choose to handle a family emergency. I preferred to walk away as my family needed me more than my will to fight back against the corporate giant. I resigned the very next day," he said. However an official clarification on the matter is awaited from Apple