The US labor board has abandoned its allegations that Apple Inc. Chief Executive Officer Tim Cook violated federal labor law, one of many cases where the agency is adopting a more business-friendly approach under President Donald Trump.
In a Sept. 26 letter viewed by Bloomberg News, the general counsel’s office of the National Labor Relations Board said it was withdrawing many of the claims in a complaint it had issued against Apple in January.
The allegations being dismissed include claims that Cook violated workers’ rights when he sent an email saying Apple was doing whatever it could to track down those who leaked information from a confidential meeting, and that “people who leak confidential information do not belong here.” That all-staff email, sent in September 2021, followed media reports about a companywide internal meeting the previous week at which management fielded questions about topics such as pay equity and Apple’s response to a Texas anti-abortion law.
The agency’s prosecutors are also withdrawing allegations that Apple broke the law by imposing confidentiality rules, firing activist Janneke Parrish, and surveilling workers or making them think they were under surveillance. In the January complaint, the labor board alleged that the company’s behavior, including Cook’s email, had been “interfering with, restraining and coercing employees in the exercise of their rights.”
In the letter to the attorney representing Parrish, who had raised brought the allegations about the company’s actions and policies, a regional director said the agency had “carefully investigated and considered” the claims and, “upon further consideration,” determined many should be dismissed.
Apple, which didn’t respond to requests for comment, has previously denied wrongdoing. An NLRB spokesperson declined to comment.
US law protects employees’ right to take collective action or communicate with one another about working conditions, with or without a union. The NLRB is tasked with enforcing those rights. Its general counsel, appointed by the US president, has sweeping authority to dictate which cases it does or doesn’t pursue.
Under Biden administration appointee Jennifer Abruzzo, the agency’s prosecutors took an expansive view of workers’ rights, bringing cases that sought for example to stop companies from punishing workers for displaying “Black Lives Matter” insignia at work, and to abolish mandatory workplace “captive audience” anti-union meetings.
Trump fired Abruzzo in January, saying he wasn’t confident she could treat employers fairly. He replaced her on an acting basis with William Cowen, who has taken a narrower view of employees’ rights under the law. “The unfortunate truth is that if we attempt to accomplish everything, we risk accomplishing nothing,” Cowen told agency staff in a memo in February, the week after his appointment.
Since then, Cowen’s office has nixed or narrowed numerous cases that were being pursued under Abruzzo, records obtained via Freedom of Information Act request show. It withdrew allegations that companies including cannabis firm Curaleaf Holdings Inc. had violated labor law by using noncompete agreements restricting staff from going to work for rivals.
It similarly abandoned claims that companies’ policies requiring workers to pay fees to management for quitting their jobs — as well as rules that banned “gossip” and restricted media interviews — were against the law.
Under Cowen, the agency has also pulled back from several of Abruzzo’s more attention-grabbing cases. The agency moved to dismiss complaints about private prison company GEO Group Inc.’s treatment of immigrant detainees and an email Sean Penn sent excoriating those complaining about working conditions at his nonprofit. Cowen also suggested that an ongoing yearslong dispute over SpaceX’s firing of employees who criticized CEO Elon Musk may never have been within the labor board’s jurisdiction in the first place.
Cowen has maintained continuity with Abruzzo in some high-profile cases, forging ahead with complaints her office brought alleging that Amazon.com Inc. was obligated to negotiate with subcontracted drivers, and that Grindr Inc. used a retaliatory return-to-office policy to derail a union drive. The companies have denied wrongdoing.
“It’s been a very balanced and thoughtful approach,” said Roger King, senior labor and employment counsel for the HR Policy Association, whose board includes executives from United Parcel Service Inc., Verizon Communications Inc. and Walmart Inc. “He’s just done an excellent job restoring practicality and appropriate uses of limited resources.”
Parrish, the former Apple program manager who brought the claims now being dismissed, described Cowen’s approach as an abdication that would embolden corporate misbehavior and discourage employees from speaking up.
“There’s going to be a very clear chilling effect,” Parrish said. “It’s saying essentially that employers have the power here.”
Photo: Apple CEO Tim Cook speaks before the start of the Apple Worldwide Developers Conference at its headquarters in 2023. Photographer: Justin Sullivan/Getty Images North America
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