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Apple Retailer Facing Class Action Suit Over Employee Bag Checks

Posted by Unknown on from the unpaid-labor dept.

aitikin writes "Former Apple employees say the company requires workers to stand around without pay for up to 30 minutes a day while waiting for managers to search their bags for stolen merchandise." The filing. It looks pretty illegal: mandatory unpaid checks of personal belongings before and after work and all breaks.

31 of 353 comments (clear)

  1. The incredible irony of.. by assemblerex · · Score: 4, Insightful

    hiring people to work in your store who can't afford the product. Ford paid his workers well so they could afford his card. Apple store has to search it's workers to prevent theft. Maybe if they paid them better they wouldn't have to worry about this.

    1. Re:The incredible irony of.. by gl4ss · · Score: 5, Interesting

      hiring people to work in your store who can't afford the product.

      Ford paid his workers well so they could afford his card.

      Apple store has to search it's workers to prevent theft. Maybe if they paid them better they wouldn't have to worry about this.

      well, they're geniuses, so they might get sneaky!
      how they think this isn't unpaid overtime though... it's pretty fucking obvious.

      also, who is checking the managers bags? they must be managers only in title because I've never seen a real manager do shit like bag checks.

      --
      world was created 5 seconds before this post as it is.
    2. Re:The incredible irony of.. by show+me+altoids · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Too bad I don't have mod points, I get them very often. Treating your employees like criminals is stupid. And you are 100% right about Ford, but for better or worse the world is different now in many ways, Apple's employees are a tiny part of the total population.

      --
      I feel sorry for people that don't drink, because when they get up in the morning, that's as good as they're gonna feel
    3. Re:The incredible irony of.. by Sockatume · · Score: 4, Insightful

      The Apple Store wages are plenty to buy a lot of products they sell. Not everything, but I doubt that 90% of electronics store employees could buy the most expensive 20% of the products on sale either. That's besides the point because retail theft isn't about "oh, I can't afford this and want to own it" anyway. It's about "oh, I can resell this and supplement my income quite handsomely". Most of the stuff people shoplift from supermarkets (staff or customers) isn't stuff that's very overall expensive, but stuff that's easy to steal and fences well like batteries and razors. High value per unit volume, lots of volume available, fungible.

      Apple basically has no reason to be doing these checks because there's nothing about their employees or product that makes it any more likely to be stolen than anywhere else. They hardly keep anything out on the shopfloor for deus' sake.

      --
      No kidding!!! What do you say at this point?
    4. Re:The incredible irony of.. by jjohnson · · Score: 5, Informative

      Most loss in retail is employee theft. When I worked at a department store, the loss prevention guys were at the doors at closing, letting employees out and checking their bags. When they were patrolling the floor during business hours, they kept a closer eye on employees than on customers. That's just a fact of life no matter what your retail segment is. In fact, I'd bet it's worse for Apple stores because their products are small, easily stolen, and fetch much higher prices than razor blades.

      --
      Anyone who loves or hates any language, platform, or manufacturer, doesn't know what they're talking about.
    5. Re:The incredible irony of.. by 0123456 · · Score: 5, Informative

      Ford paid his workers well so they could afford his card.

      No, he didn't. He didn't even pay them well so they could afford his cars.

      Ford paid them well because he was suffering horribly from employee turnover as they worked for him long enough to learn their job and then moved on to a better-paid job elsewhere. Increasing their wages lead to a dramatic reduction in employee turnover, and increased productivity enough to justify the extra pay.

      I've no idea why this urban legend continues to flourish when it's so clearly retarded. If he'd paid them more so they could afford his cars, they were at least as likely to spend the money with a competitor, or spend it on something more useful to them.

    6. Re:The incredible irony of.. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Funny

      > also, who is checking the managers bags?

      Obviously, VP of Bag Checking and Chief Bag Checking Officer, duh.

    7. Re:The incredible irony of.. by Artifakt · · Score: 4, Insightful

      The difference is, the people in government are supposed to be our employees, not us theirs, so it's even worse.

      --
      Who is John Cabal?
    8. Re:The incredible irony of.. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Given that this is only at two stores, I would bet heavily that this is two managers' policy, not Apple's. Certainly at previous crappy jobs (not at apple) I've met managers that have thought it was entirely okay to try and make you turn up half an hour early for things like team briefs and bag searches. The head office HR department had a shit fit, and said it was nothing to do with the company when I phoned up and suggested that that violated minimum wage law.

    9. Re:The incredible irony of.. by gagol · · Score: 5, Insightful

      you are 100% right about Ford, but for better or worse the world is different now in many ways

      Corporations now expect a profit margin so large, the only way to make it happens is to produce their products in low income countries... very VERY sad.

      --
      Tomorrow is another day...
    10. Re:The incredible irony of.. by gagol · · Score: 4, Interesting

      We caught an employee stealing many $K worth of specialized maple sap pumps at my job. There is no use for them nor black market for them (tracability and all). I would be more inclined to believe most stealing is caused by cleptomania than poverty. After all, all he stole was not worth more than 6 weeks of pay, and he could not move the stuff (we got it all back...).

      --
      Tomorrow is another day...
    11. Re:The incredible irony of.. by Kjella · · Score: 4, Insightful

      I've no idea why this urban legend continues to flourish when it's so clearly retarded. If he'd paid them more so they could afford his cars, they were at least as likely to spend the money with a competitor

      Highly unlikely, a few years back I was doing some work for Volvo and in the parking lot there was a rather overwhelming share of Volvos. Sure, nobody expects you to sell or scrap an existing car that works well but somehow I don't think a Ford worker arriving in a new non-Ford car would get very well received by neither coworkers nor management, it's a pretty clear message you wouldn't want to eat your own dog food. That they could use the money for other things sure, but if they bought a car I'd say it was a very safe bet it'd be a Ford.

      --
      Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
    12. Re:The incredible irony of.. by The+Rizz · · Score: 3, Informative

      My father had a well paying job with great benefits doing repair work for a public utility. Every couple of years they were buying new hand tools, wrenches and such. Did the old tools wear out or break? No, they simply disappeared.

      I work doing repairs, and have to replace missing tools all the time - but not because of theft. Occasionally you drive off after forgetting your screwdriver sitting next to whatever you were working on.

    13. Re:The incredible irony of.. by VortexCortex · · Score: 4, Funny

      I'm not sure I follow... Perhaps a Unix analogy?

    14. Re:The incredible irony of.. by cyber-vandal · · Score: 3

      I think you should update this page then with the true reasons including all your references.

    15. Re:The incredible irony of.. by SandraMcgowan · · Score: 3, Interesting

      The department store I worked at had this same policy but only after half a dozen employees had tried to sneak out a few items in the past. They try to make it as painless as possible though. We had a locker room where we could store all our stuff and it was connected to the main floor. That way, they only had to give us a simple pat down when we entered and left the locker room and they did not need to check our bags anymore.

    16. Re:The incredible irony of.. by YttriumOxide · · Score: 4, Informative

      I'm with AC, what happened with HR? I think everyone would like to hear a story where HR benefited the employees and not themselves.

      In the company I work for, our HR recently started an initiative to make salary scales and schemes more transparent and fair. We're a very large organisation that has evolved from one very large merger around a decade ago and very many acquisitions both before and since then.

      Because of this growth, we've generally had a lot of people with different pay schemes and structures in place, sometimes even with vastly different incomes and benefits for the exact same jobs.

      This prompted the idea to try and make everything more fair and even by implementing a new system. Doing so, they could've gone a few different ways - including some ways that would not have been in the employees best interests at all. What they've done however is something I'm extremely impressed with.

      All new employees will be under the new system. Existing employees are given an offer to migrate in to the new system (for generally very similar or only slightly more pay than currently), however they can decline to do so and remain on their existing structure if they so choose. The new structure is based on "job families" and "job levels" whereby each job family describes (very generally) a type of work, and the job levels define the seniority/experience/complexity within that family. Each job level (regardless of family) has a specific pay scale associated with it and so while you can't know exactly what a co-worker is earning, you can know they are within a particular range.

      Should an existing employee who did not choose to go in to the new structure change job in the future, they'll change in to the new structure when they do so (essentially like a new hire for that job; but of course taking their existing experience/skills/etc within the company in to account). Beyond this, the ability to discuss the position within the new structure is also not only allowed but also encouraged so that every employee feels they have been put in to the family and level that truly fits their work. The members of my team for example were all put in to a job family that I feel doesn't fit the real work that we do, so I've asked for a meeting with HR tomorrow to get them in to the job family that I feel fits better (technically the same "level" so no difference in pay; but better options for advancement in the future and just generally a better fit for the actual job). I don't foresee it being a big problem for this change (but who knows, maybe I'll reply to this post tomorrow with an angry rant... let's see!)

      So overall, I'm pretty happy with the way HR has handled this process and applaud them for doing it in a way that no employee is going to feel short changed or in a worse situation because of it.

      --
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      Also on facebook as: DroppingAcidDaleBewan
    17. Re:The incredible irony of.. by tlhIngan · · Score: 3, Informative

      Given that this is only at two stores, I would bet heavily that this is two managers' policy, not Apple's.

      You would probably lose. According to the complaint, "These personal package and bag searches" ... are a uniform practice and policy in all Apple retail stores nationwide"

      Except they're not mutually exclusive. Other Apple stores may have the same policy, but the search is done on company time (there's nothing to say the manager can't search the bags prior to shift end and then hand them to the employee as they leave).

      The complaint isn't about bag searches (most places have them in retail). It's about being forced to wait half an hour after shift end, on unpaid time to leave. Yeah, it's only half an hour, but given Apple retail store pay, that's easily another $5-10 a day (Apple tends to pay on the higher end of the scale).

      So either other Apple stores do it better with the same policy and it's just a couple of douchebag managers (way too common on retail - a "manager" in retail parlance doesn't pay much more than a floor salesperson but has more power so the Peter Principle is very strong), or there's been a recent policy change. It's definitely not something that's been around a while (or we'd have heard it much earlier - Apple may be secretive, but ex-employees tend to make injustices transparent).

  2. Sounds like a slam-dunk by billstewart · · Score: 5, Informative

    If Apple's actions are being described correctly, that's time that clearly belongs to be on the clock.

    --

    Bill Stewart
    New Fast-Compression-only CPR http://preview.tinyurl.com/dy575ks
  3. Re:I have no sympathy by Jiro · · Score: 4, Insightful

    I would imagine that aiurplane pilots are not paid by the hour, which these guys are.

  4. Re:I have no sympathy by victorhooi · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Hi,

    Hmm, I believe airline pilots are a little bit different to other hourly employees.

    They're paid for time "in-flight" - which is why you probably don't get paid for say, the TSA security checks. However, apparently there's a minimum base amount they're paid, even if they sit around doing nothing.

    So we're not exactly comparing apples to apples here (that, and I suspect pilot salaries probably aren't exactly the same as retail employee salaries).

    Last time I heard, airline attendants were the same (http://mentalfloss.com/article/31044/10-shocking-secrets-flight-attendants).

    Cheers,
    Victor

  5. You're wrong on all counts. by raehl · · Score: 3, Interesting

    As an airline pilot, you've (well, your union, on your behalf) negotiated a contract with the airline where your pay is based on getting the plane where it needs to go, and you are paid for all activities necessary to accomplish the task for which you are paid for.

    Also known as, AIRLINE PILOTS ARE NOT HOURLY EMPLOYEES.

    I am sure that, once you add up all the time you spend on all of your job-related activities, your wage + time and a half for hours over 40 per week, greatly exceeds the minimum wage.

    Just like every other salaried employee who doesn't make any more money when it's crunch time and you have to pull 10-12 hour days to get shit done. It's called a job description, and being paid for the job (get plane from A to B) instead of the time (you were in airports/planes from 9 AM to 8 PM.)

    If you don't like the terms of your contract, either renegotiate it so you are paid by the hour instead of by the trip (or flight hour), or work somewhere else. I hear Apple stores are hiring.

    Note that Apple stores probably don't have benefits like medical, dental, or free flights on any domestic carrier on a space-available basis, and your hourly wage will plummet vs. your flight-hour wage, but at least you'll get a slight increase on your paycheck if customs takes a little longer to clear!

    --
    paintball
    1. Re:You're wrong on all counts. by fahrbot-bot · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Former airport McDonalds worker here. Your post, and most of the posts replying to this guy amuse me a lot. I was an hourly employee and I had to go through security before starting my shift. This was unpaid and there were often queues. It was the same for all the staff working airside who were paid by the hour.

      Yes, but those delays were imposed by the TSA and/or airport, not McDonalds or the other vendors. I'm sure you sometimes got stuck in traffic on the way to the airport too - again not a delay caused by your employer. These people are having to wait at the direction of Apple, their employer, so your example is not comparable.

      --
      It must have been something you assimilated. . . .
  6. Re:Typical by mjwx · · Score: 5, Insightful

    2/3rds of loss in retail is from employee theft. At a place like Apple outlets, where the products are small, expensive, and easily turned over for cash to friends or pawn shops, I'd imagine it's even higher. Not that this fact excuses forcing unpaid overtime on your workers, but I'm not surprised they're doing bag checks.

    The bag check isn't the problem.

    Employers reserve that right even in countries with real employer protection. What isn't Kosher is the fact they have to do it unpaid. If an employer wants to screen you on your way out that time must be paid for by the employer.

    Same for when an employee takes a break. In retail environments your breaks are timed (I've even heard they are even unpaid in the US), so a screening should not be permitted to detract from that time.

    I work in a secure facility, I clock on from the first the moment I enter the building. Even if it takes me 5 minutes to get to my desk. Then again I work in a country that punishes employers for taking advantage of employees.

    --
    Calling someone a "hater" only means you can not rationally rebut their argument.
  7. Re:Why don't they just ban the bags? by ShanghaiBill · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Depending on where the Apple store is relative to your home/other jobs/schooling, employees might not relish the thought of going all the way to work and back every day with nothing but the contents of their pockets and wearing their work outfit.

    They don't need to ban bringing the bag to work, just ban bringing it into the inventory control area. They could provide a locker room where people can lock up their bag before their shift, outside the inventory control point (the place where they were inspecting the bags). This is common practice at plenty of retailers, warehouses, and manufacturers. Try this: Go to Walmart and walk around. Okay, now how many employees do you see walking around the store with backpacks, purses etc? Answer: zero. They are in the locker room.

  8. Re:I have no sympathy by rtb61 · · Score: 4, Insightful

    That is like saying "I'm a whiny gutless arse hole" because "I'm a whiny gutless arse hole" every one deserves to be like "whiny gutless arse holes". Sorry pal that's now how it works in a fair society. If an employer makes demands upon your time, you deserve to be fairly compensated for it.

    I have sympathy for anyone who gets ripped off by their employer or in any way abused. It's pretty lame to be a cowardly victim and then thinks it fair for every one to get abused that way. Gee's dude I also hope they grope your genitals, radiate you arse and probe you upon a regular basis because it sounds like they should as for the rest of humanity any employer that treats it's employees like that deserves to be run out of business by vengeful unions.

    --
    Chaos - everything, everywhere, everywhen
  9. Re:I have no sympathy by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Insightful

    No sympathy huh? How sociopathic of you. Just because you have a shitty job, it doesn't justify bringing everyone else down to your level.

    This is why the USA is so fucked up right now. Whenever someone else has a job with better pay and better working conditions, instead of demanding that your pay and working conditions improve, people with your mindset complain that the other guy is lazy, overpaid and undeserving of better treatment. Your attitude is part of the problem, not the solution.

  10. Re:I have no sympathy by whois · · Score: 5, Interesting

    They are actually, but every minute they're not paid has been negotiated by the airline unions. If you've ever had your flight delayed due to maintenance after they've pushed back from the gate? Yeah, that's an asshole pilot and cabin crew who knew the plane wasn't ready to fly, but wanted to start the clock on their paycheck.

    They don't get paid until the doors are closed and they're away from the gate, so sitting on the runway with no air conditioning is better for them than delaying your boarding. I won't say they don't deserve to be paid, but inconveniencing 300 people to please 10 isn't the right way to do things. Then topping that with federal laws that don't allow people to get up and go to the bathroom, or turn their phones on because the plane is "taxiing" technically even though it's sitting there with the wheels off, or whatever they're doing to it.

  11. Re:Apple is just an Electronics Company by whisper_jeff · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Shut up you ignorant lying moron.

    sales are plummeting

    It's seen a _small_ sales dip in _some_ categories but nothing close to "plummeting". And if you dare quote the iPad numbers, you will betray how daft you are. It's a channel adjustment - the actual sell through numbers only dropped 3% which is _EASILY_ attributable to people knowing a new iPad is on the horizon and choosing to wait before buying and if you consider a 3% dip "plummeting" then you are a moron.

    paying literally zero tax

    Apple paid more corporate taxes than ANY OTHER AMERICAN COMPANY! Now, I don't know what your definition of "literally zero" is but when they paid more than anyone else, that would suggest they did not, in fact, pay "literally zero". Unless every other corporation got money back, Apple did not LITERALLY pay ZERO taxes.

    I'm not going to pick apart any more of your post because you're a lying moron and not worth my time. Anyone who claims Apple is paying "literally zero tax" is flat out a liar.

    How does ignorant lying bullshit like this get modded up?

    Feel free to flame; feel free to mod me troll, but I'm sick of flat out bullshit ignorant posts like this being modded "Informative". I've been coming to Slashdot for many years to learn new things about tech and geek subjects but this is getting pathetic. Hate Apple, if you want, but at least base it vaguely on facts rather than complete and total bullshit lies.

  12. D.O.U.C etc. by dna_(c)(tm)(r) · · Score: 5, Funny

    Dubious Officer of Unpaid Checking and Harassment Executive - Bags

  13. Re:I have no sympathy by microTodd · · Score: 4, Informative

    Not sure how reliable these citations are but I found these which contradict your assertion. Sounds like most pilots are paid for "flight time", and in fact are NOT compensated for when they are sitting at the gate.

    http://www.airliners.net/aviation-forums/tech_ops/read.main/278808/

    http://thetruthabouttheprofession.weebly.com/professional-pilot-salaries.html

    http://www.pilotcareer.info/Airline_Pay___Life.html

    --
    "You cannot find out which view is the right one by science in the ordinary sense." - C.S. Lewis on Intelligent Design