Roger Fingas
A long-running lawsuit over bag searches of Apple Store workers was certified as a class action on Thursday, broadening the potential impact to over 12,000 past and present retail staff.
The ruling was issued by U.S. District Judge William Alsup in San Francisco, Reuters said. Apple had been fighting class action status, arguing that not all store managers were conducting searches and that any that did happen took just a short amount of time.
The case traces its origins back to 2013, when plaintiffs Amanda Frlekin and Dean Pelle said that Apple Store workers had their bags searched every time they left an outlet — something allegedly taking five minutes before unpaid meal breaks, and between 10 and 15 minutes at the end of a shift. Such searches were and are designed to deter theft of products that can cost hundreds or thousands of dollars.
While small within the context of a single day however, one plaintiff calculated that they lost 50 minutes to an hour and a half of unpaid overtime each week, translating into $1,400 or more in missing wages over the course of a year.
Earlier court filings obtained by Reuters noted that at least two Apple Store workers complained directly to CEO Tim Cook about the searches, calling them demeaning. One sent an email in 2012, arguing that managers were "required to treat 'valued' employees as criminals."
This prompted Cook to forward the message to retail and human resources executives asking "Is this true?" Any responses the CEO may have got were not included in public documents.
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85 Comments
This is great news! For the lawyers.
"Please sign this form so we can cut you a check for $17.32 in 5.5 years if you're still at the same address. Thanks."
Fire them all. Apple should then sue the workers for socializing at least 30 minutes a day, costing Apple millions of dollars a year in productive work. In the end, only the lawyers win.
My friend worked in a metal refinery that handled gold and silver. They had to strip all their clothes off and pass through another room to put on their work clothes at the start of their shifts, with no exit for lunch or bathroom use, i.e., they stayed in the processing facility for those...
...and at the end of their shifts, had to strip again, step into a high pressure shower that opened on one side (to remove gold and silver dust) and then exit to where their street clothes were on the other side... ....passing thru a corridor with a metal detector.
So there are truly invasive employee anti-theft policies and then there are, well, things like this....
If they win this class action, all retail chains will be sued next because they implement the same method.
My prediction: it ain't. Will get thrown out...it's stupid.
I guess the consensus here is that this is a rubbish law suit. I disagree. If Apple wants to check it's employees for merchandise before they leave (the high end Watch costs over $10k for heavens sakes) that's their business. However, if they are still required to be on employer premises while they wait for the search, it's reasonable apple should pay them for their time.
Apple is fast becoming a nickel-and-diming operation.