Apple has become one of the first tech giants to address the issue of caste discrimination by banning it in the code of conduct in the United States.
The tech giant, Apple, now has a policy against caste-based discrimination and has published a code of conduct for employees in the US. The company revised its general employee conduct code two years ago to include a ban on caste discrimination in addition to other categories including gender, age, religion, race, and ancestry.
Given that managers and staff in the US might not be familiar with the concept of caste, which is well-known to people in India, Apple has also begun training on the subject to help its employees better comprehend the new regulations.
Apple said that it “updated language a couple of years ago to reinforce” and curb the “discrimination or harassment based on caste.”
The update took place in 2020 when Cisco Systems was sued for caste-discrimination
The upgrade, according to a report, happened in June 2020 when Cisco Systems was sued by California’s employment authority on behalf of an engineer who claimed two superiors from higher castes were obstructing his career. The incident caused large internet companies to face reality, which appears to extend beyond Indian boundaries and was seen as the first US employment lawsuit regarding suspected casteism.
In addition to Apple, IBM appears to have changed its policy to cover anti-caste rules. As of now, IBM is only training its managers on the topic of caste.
However, the global policies of other major tech companies such as Google, Meta, Dell, and Amazon do not explicitly mention caste in their main global policy.
Apple has said that they have a “diverse” global team and its policies reflect the new changes taking place. The company’s new hiring policy includes that Apple “does not discriminate in recruiting, training, hiring, or promoting on the basis of “race, color, ancestry, national origin, caste, religion, creed, or age.” This also includes disability, sexual orientation, and gender. The policy has eighteen categories.