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Apple Sued For Turning Workers Into Slaves
SwiftyNifty writes "Apple employees are putting together a class action lawsuit for not receiving overtime pay. A Lawsuit filed Monday in California seeks class action status alleging that Apple denied technical staffers required overtime pay and meal compensation in violation of state law.
Filed in the US District Court for Southern California, the complaint claims that many Apple employees are routinely subjected to working conditions resembling indentured servitude, or 'modern day slaves,' for lack of better words."
Just wait until they win their suit..Apple will pay the court required payments.. then convert all those employee to an hourly status...at a base pay cut design to make it so that all the overtime is required to make it back to what they were getting in salary in the first place.
For the IBM employeesu in California that sued for the same thing.. the class won $56M and everyone in the class was reclassified as hourly at a 15% pay cut, because based on IBM's calculations that would keep the wage payments at the same level after the switch from salary to hourly. And oh by the way.. IBM applied the reclassification across all American employees in the same job category, but not the class action payments.
Um, speaking as someone whose mother is a teacher, sister is a teacher, and sister-in-law is a teacher, you are paid for your summer break. You usually will receive a large check at the beginning of the summer break to cover you for the summer. So, you are being paid, just like if you were in school. So what if you have to attend some trainings, etc. You have already been compensated at the beginning of the summer. She is not paying for the privilege, she was paid previously. That money is basically given with the assumption that through the summer, you will be creating lesson plans and such for the next year. Going to a training fits into that scope. If you worry about paying for gas and everything, look into taking that as a deduction/credit on your taxes at the current rate of ~$0.50/mile. I know that as an engineer, when I have had to travel to facilities other than the one I have a desk at, I get reimbursed by the government. Now, don't think I am disparaging teachers. I'm not. They usually are at the schools for an hour an a half before class, and usually 2 after, in addition to taking work home like grading papers, tests, etc. Add to that, that they have to deal with a bunch of kids that usually don't want to listen to them, you get a situation where teachers are not compensated enough in my eyes.
So how does this compare, to BMW for example, where their German workforce is also highly unionized? Have they essentially done the same thing as the U.S. automakers, essentially shipping jobs away from heavy regulations in favor of lighter ones?
A quick Google search http://www.google.com/search?source=ig&hl=en&rlz=&q=bmw+unionization+U.S.+plants tells me that the U.S. plant is non-unionized but pays competitive wages. What this doesn't say is how their non-wage costs, benefits and retirement for example, compare with their unionized force in German and with the Big 3.
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If it isn't racist, it isn't slavery? That's the stupidest argument I ever heard. There might be good reasons to argue that it isn't slavery, but you've failed to find one of them.
Alexander Peter Kristopeit bought his basement from his mommy for one dollar.
I can't talk to them because they speak Chinese. But I have worked with them and have spoken to the factory engineers who do speak English.
They aren't all "happy", and nor are they all "sad". That's too simplistic. They are people with a wide range of emotions. Most of them - as I said before - were subsistence farmers and most have no education. None at all. They can't read or write.
The competition for labor is fierce. They move around from factory to factory seeking higher pay (the engineers do this, too). They aren't slaves that are compelled to work in one place.
Would they rather be living with their families? Certainly some (most?) would. Are they happy to have a full belly and some money to send back home? Absolutely.
W..w..W - Willy Waterloo washes Warren Wiggins who is washing Waldo Woo.
"They can't fire you for not working overtime. "
Yes, yes they can, they can fire you without even giving a reason in any of the "at will" states.
Protecting a domestic job artificially costs the entire society in productivity lost and higher cost of goods sold. It's like enacting a tax to benefit the factory worker.
Besides the economic mumbo-jumbo, the choices aren't "$50/month for an iPod maker in China vs. $2500/month for an iPod maker in the west". In reality, the production line would include a lot more automation if it had to be produced in the west. Just look at western vs. Chinese coal mines. Also, if products cost more, fewer would be sold and so even fewer workers would be needed. How many iPods do you think Apple would sell if the price doubled or tripled?
W..w..W - Willy Waterloo washes Warren Wiggins who is washing Waldo Woo.
Read the laws reguarding overtime. According the the Fair Labor Standards Act, an employee must be classified as exempt by meeting certain legal requirements, or they must be paid 1.5x their hourly wage. The law specifically states that no contract or agreement between employee and employer can override the law.
Read all about it, you very well might be a victim too!
http://www.dol.gov/esa/whd/flsa/
Sometimes the best solution is to stop wasting time looking for an easy solution.
And at the same time, the factory owners are moving to the inner provinces as wages demands keep increasing, thus increasing the demand for transportation.
Riot at McDonalds toy making factory
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Speaking as someone who actually works at a school district, you either misunderstand what that money represents, or you know some pretty damned lucky teachers. The district I work at (and I've heard teachers from other places describe it this way as well) gives you two options: 1) Full pay for nine months. It's up to you to either budget responsibly or find a summer job to hold you over for those summer months. 2) Average out your salary over twelve months - you get the same amount of money, but some of it is held during the school months so that you can continue to receive a steady paycheck over the summer. Either way, the teachers are only contracted for the days they work in the school year - summer isn't considered paid work or paid vacation. Now, if things are different in your district, that's fine - just remember that different places and people will have different perspectives.
Because you don't just declare your workers to be independent contractors when you treat them like employees. The IRS is *very* specific about worker classifications. If you're misclassified as an independent contractor, the company can be hit with serious fines and potentially face criminal tax evasion charges. I know this because I am currently fighting my 1099 classification with a former employer. Check out IRS Form SS8 for more information about the guidelines.
Entrepreneur : (noun), French for "unemployed"
No one's saying denying workers their rights under CA law is a good thing. But slavery is also a huge problem, and a much worse one on an individual level than not getting one's work break.
It would be like someone living in a normal apartment in Boston that had a problem with the hot water heater every four hours complaining that they were being forced to live in an outhouse. Or a tar pit. Only like there really were millions who had to live in outhouses and tar pits. The claim takes the focus away from the hot water heater.
And there really are millions of slaves.
Thousands are enslaved every day. A River of In
If demand for work is higher than supply of work, then people who provide work can charge a premium; this translates to increased hours.
In other words, one worker for 15 hours is one bed and three meals. Two workers for 8 hours is two beds and six meals.
If there were more work than workers, workers could dictate their hours, their pay, and their benefits. Make sense?
GPL Deconstructed
My girlfriend used to work for AppleCare (in the call center). Here's what she said about it (from IM, so excuse the grammar/typing):
Was the call center actually Apple owned? Or was it one of the many "Teleservice" outsourcing companies? Either way, the described situation sounds exactly like standard call center practices. The sad part is most companies seem to think call center = help desk. You can have one or the other, but not both. A help desk costs more, but yields better results whereas a call center costs less and yields nothing but frustrated customers. Unfortunately most organizations seem unable to see past the bottom line of the next quarter.
Shift happens. Fire it up.
I've been teaching for twenty years now and I can attest to the fact that slave labor is rampant in education. Many are require to volunteer (work) for the good of the institution---and it's often a money-maker for the institution. Even with the world's strongest union, we're typically forced into slave labor. Just the other day my boss told me that we as teacher are going to have to increase our non-teaching workload by 40%. The number is nonsense, but it basically suggest that we're going to have to increase our workload.
Anyway, the point being, even with a strong union you can't stop this from happening, so I am kind of surprised that people see this as unusual at Apple, everyone's doing it.
I also see this as hitting the educated more than any other group.
My girlfriend used to work for AppleCare (in the call center). Here's what she said about it (from IM, so excuse the grammar/typing):
well...your expected to check your company related email, stats, get your system booted, go aver any company alerts BEFORE you sign on. this requires most to come in early to do work related things. the catch is Apple doesn't pay you till you're signed on and your shift actually starts. Apple's argument is that you can do these other work related things between calls ... but that's difficult because calls come in constantly... and time in "idle" counts against you.
That's actually the case with any call-center. It's not unique to Apple.
Doesn't make it fair, though, IMO.
Man, if that's what they were doing they are screwed, from:
http://portland.bizjournals.com/portland/stories/2003/11/24/daily21.html
"T-Mobile said 20,546 workers at 13 call centers, including one in Salem, were required to perform "preparatory activities" prior to the beginning of their normal shifts. Such activities -- and any other work-related activity beyond 40 hours per week -- must be compensated under the Fair Labor Standards Act, according to an announcement."
T-Mobile lost to the tune of 4.8 Million. Can we say precedence?
Georgia Tech, the leader in Chia(tm) technology.
Other companies in the past have tried to get away with this and been slapped hard. The case Anderson v. Mt. Clemens Pottery Co. was specifically decided in the employees favor on just this issue.
The pottery company did not start paying the employees until after they had reached their workstations, put on their work clothes, cleaned and sharpened their tools. The court ruled that any activity performed exclusively for the benefit of the company counts as paid time, even walking to your workstation. Hence the name "portal-to-portal decision" - employees must be paid as soon as they walk in the door and don't stop until they walk out of it.
I think Apple is probably in trouble here.
Many programmers (especially interns and entry level) are non-exempt. I fail to see how a call center worker would be exempt from overtime rules.
In California, most exempt workers operate under the administrative exemption. An employee is an exempt administrator if he/she regularly exercises discretion and independent judgment, performs under only general supervision, and is primarily engaged in duties that require the exercise of discretion and independent judgment. This means that in the course of day-to-day activities, the employee frequently compares and evaluates possible courses of conduct and, after considering various possibilities, acts or makes a decision. An employee who follows a prescribed procedure, or determines which procedure to follow, is not exercising independent judgment.
While most if not all employees are required to exercise discretion in decision making, an exempt employee must be dealing with matters that are significant to the policies or operations of the business or its customers.
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This is pretty much industry standard in call-centers. I mentioned this to my managers that I was against coming in early to start computer, read e-mails and sit at my desk for 10 - 15 minutes before I get paid. Add it up over the year and you're looking at an extra $2000. They said no and basically implied that if I didn't I would lose my job. Some of the employees didn't agree with my position and didn't see what was wrong with it until they did the math.
Just to be clear. I've no problem doing the work or the overtime. Coming into work early is fine with me. But they never even offered - and would not even - boot the computers for the employees. In a sales position I made more than enough money that I didn't care. When it came to entry level work, where you don't work for much money and return a lot to the company - as with most call center jobs, its really taking advantage of the unfortunate.
Completely illegal. I work for a health care business office and they tried to pull that crap on us, saying we must be logged into the system and into our first account within 3 minutes of clocking in. If we don't have time after swiping, come in early.
I swiftly pointed out that practice to be illegal, and proceeded to time myself walking from the clock, to my workstation, booting my computer, loading Outlook (we are required to check for systems alerts before logging in) and even that took me almost 5 minutes. I hadn't even started our software. The max time between clocking and starting work went back to 10 minutes.
Labor laws are VERY clear on this issue. They can require you to come prepared (dressed a certain way, or whatever), but they cannot require you do perform ANY work related tasks without pay. Heck, they can't even ask.
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