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US tech giants are taking a modern crash course in India’s ancient caste system, with Apple emerging as an early leader in policies to rid Silicon Valley of the rigid hierarchies that have divided Indians for generations.
Apple, the world’s largest listed company, revised its general employee conduct policy two years ago to explicitly prohibit discrimination based on race, religion, gender, ethnicity and race, which has been added alongside categories such as race, religion, gender, age and ethnicity.
The inclusion of the new category, which was not previously reported, bypasses US discrimination laws, which do not expressly prohibit casteism.
The update comes after the technology sector – which counts India as a source of highly skilled foreign workers – received a wake-up call in June 2020 when a California employment watchdog sued Cisco Systems on behalf of a low-caste engineer who sued two high-profile employers. The bosses of blocking the work.
Cisco, which denies wrongdoing, said an internal investigation found no evidence of discrimination and that some of the allegations were unfounded because caste is not legally a “protected class” in California. An appeals panel this month rejected the network company’s bid to push the case into private arbitration, meaning a public court case could come next year.
The dispute — the first US employment lawsuit about casteism — forced Big Tech to confront a millennia-old hierarchy in which Indian social status was based on family lineage, from the highest Brahmin “priest” class to the Dalits, who were “hidden.” Untouchables” and were given to menial labour.
Since the lawsuit was filed, a number of activists and labor groups have begun seeking an updated U.S. discrimination law — as well as demanding that tech companies change their own policies to fill the gap and prevent racism.
Their efforts have had little effect, according to a Reuters review of US industrial policy that employs hundreds of thousands of workers from India.
“I’m not surprised that the policies are inconsistent, because that’s what you expect when the law is not clear,” said Kevin Brown, a law professor at South Carolina Law School, citing uncertainty about whether race will continue among executives. Do it under US law.
“I can imagine parts of an organization saying this makes sense, and other parts saying we don’t think it makes sense to take a stand.
Apple’s main internal policy on workplace conduct, seen by Reuters, added equal employment opportunity and anti-harassment sections to cast references after September 2020.
Apple confirmed that it had “updated language a few years ago to strengthen its prohibition against race-based discrimination or harassment.” He added that the training given to the employees clearly mentions ethnicity.
“Our teams continually review our policies, training, procedures and resources to ensure they are comprehensive,” he said. “We have a diverse and international team and we are proud that our policies and practices reflect that.”
Elsewhere in technology, IBM told Reuters that it had already cast in India-specific policies, following the Cisco lawsuit, on its global anti-discrimination rules, though it declined to give a specific date or reason.
IBM’s only training that mentions caste is for managers in India, the company added.
Several companies, including Amazon, Dell, Facebook owner Meta, Microsoft and Google, do not specifically mention Castel in their core global policies. Reuters reviewed each of the policies, some of which were published internally only to employees.
The companies all told Reuters that they have zero tolerance for caste discrimination and that such discrimination falls under restrictions on caste and racial discrimination unless META provides an explanation.
Casteism is banned in India.
Although racial discrimination was outlawed in India 70 years ago, discrimination persists, according to several studies in recent years, including one that found Dalits were underrepresented in high-paying jobs. The debate on hierarchy is controversial in India and abroad, and the issue is tied to religion, and some say discrimination is now rare.
A government policy of reserving seats for students from low-origin backgrounds in India’s top universities has helped many land-based tech ventures in the West in recent years.
Reuters spoke to nearly two dozen Dalit tech workers in the United States; He said discrimination followed them overseas. Including their last name, hometown, diet, or religious practices, they say they’ve been passed over by coworkers in hiring, promotion, and social activities.
Reuters could not independently verify the staff’s allegations; All of them wished to remain anonymous for fear of damaging their careers. The two said they quit because of what they saw as casteism.
Some workers’ groups, including Google’s parent company Alphabet Workers Union (AWU), say a clear reference to divinity in corporate law opens the door for companies to invest in areas such as data collection and training to protect others. Groups.
“There is a lot of racial discrimination in the United States,” said Google software engineer Mayuri Raja, an AWU member and advocate for low-income workers.
More than 1,600 Google employees have demanded an increase to the core workplace code of conduct worldwide, seen by Reuters, and were outraged last week when they sent an email to CEO Sundar Pichai last month and received no response.
Google reiterated to Reuters that racial discrimination falls under national identity, racial and ethnic discrimination. He declined to elaborate on the policies.
“Not good for business.”
Adding caste to a general code of conduct is not unheard of.
Introduced in July 2020 by the World Wide Web Consortium, an industry standards body based in part in Massachusetts. California State University and the state Democratic Party have followed suit the past two years.
In May of this year, California’s employment regulator, the Department of Civil Rights, added precedent to employers’ equal employment opportunity policies.
But the move by Apple, a $2.8 trillion behemoth with more than 165,000 full-time employees worldwide, is a big one.
The iPhone maker’s Fair Employment Policy now states that Apple “does not discriminate in recruiting, training, hiring or promotion based on 18 categories, including race, color, ancestry, national origin, race, religion, creed, age.” Also disability, sexual orientation and gender identity.
In contrast, many employers are hesitant to go beyond the rules in their core policies, according to three employment lawyers, including Koray Bulut, a partner at Goodwin Procter.
“Most companies simply cite federal and state laws that list protected categories,” Bulut said.
Some companies, however, have gone even further with secondary policies that cover limited jobs or serve only as loose guidelines.
Caste is clearly spelled out in Dell’s Global Social Media Policy, such as Amazon’s Sustainability Group’s Global Human Rights Principles and Google’s Supplier Code of Conduct.
Amazon and Dell confirmed outside India that they have started mentioning caste in anti-discrimination approaches for at least some new hires. Dell said it made the change after the Cisco lawsuit was filed, but declined to say when, why or how widely it made the increase.
The companies describe caste as an unwanted social structure in parts of the world, according to a Reuters review of some online training, citing a recent lawsuit filed by Del Material as “headlines.”
John-Paul Singh Deol, an employment lawyer at Dillon Law Group in San Francisco, said that merely including caste in training and guidelines is “paying lip service” to the issue because its legal force is dubious.
That characterization was rejected by Janine Yancey, CEO of Emtrain, which sells anti-discrimination training to about 550 employers, and a longtime employment attorney.
“No company wants to have staff turnover, loss of productivity and conflict – that’s not good for business,” she says.
However, mentioning it openly can invite a number of HR complaints of discrimination, Yancey added.
“Every time you’re calling something different, you’re increasing your caseload exponentially,” she said.
Apple declined to say whether any complaints had come under the Cast offer.
Brown, a South Carolina law professor, doesn’t expect an immediate resolution to the debate over whether companies should cite Caste.
“This is a matter that will ultimately be resolved in court,” he said. “The environment is not stable now.”
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