This is absolutely ridiculous. There should be some seriously punitive fines for this. While I can see the lack of sympathy because these employees are so well

This is absolutely ridiculous. There should be some seriously punitive fines for this. While I can see the lack of sympathy because these employees are so well compensated and rewarded for the work, if this affected blue-collar jobs instead there would be people on the streets, and quite rightly. As someone else pointed out, Google and Apple are probably making on the order of $900k/year profit per employee - there is obviously cash in the bank to pay market salaries without resorting to disgraceful tactics like this.