A class-action case filed by Apple retail store employees in 2013 against Apple in relation to the company's Employee Package and Bag Searches policy has been dismissed by the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California.
The written policy, put in place to prevent the internal theft of Apple products, requires employees to undergo bag and technology card searches prior to going out of the store after their shift.
The lawsuit was filed by five Apple employees who represented more than 12,000 workers in 52 retail store locations in California. The plaintiffs were composed of "current or former hourly-paid and non-exempt employee[s] of Apple Inc. who worked at one or more Apple California retail stores from July 25, 2009 to the present," according to the case resolution filed on Nov. 7, 2015.
The Issue
In the suit, the plaintiffs appealed for compensation for the time spent waiting during the bag and technology card searches. According to the plaintiffs, the five to 10 minutes Apple employees spend on having their personal belongings checked after they have clocked out every day will have equated to about $1,500 in unpaid wages yearly for each employee.
The complaints also went beyond money matters. In an email sent to Apple CEO Tim Cook in 2012, an Apple retail specialist wrote that the searches were "both demeaning and insulting." The sender went on to say that the policies imply that the company doesn't trust its employees, who are treated like "criminals."
The Verdict
The plantiffs' motion was denied, with U.S. District Judge William Alsup noting that the employees have always had the option not to bring their belongings to the workplace and thus avoid the searches. Moreover, Alsup specified that the searches are not part of the employees' work designation; someone else did the searches while the employees waited.
"The time our plaintiffs spent waiting for the searches to be completed plainly does not constitute 'work' under the 'suffered or permitted' prong," Alsup said in his ruling. "Neither the searches nor waiting for them to be completed had any relationship to their job responsibilities. They cannot be compensated for that passive activity."
Furthermore, according to the judge, Apple could have prohibited its employees from bringing bags and personal Apple devices to work, but the company "took a milder approach" to preventing internal theft by allowing its employees to bring their personal belongings under the condition that they must submit to the searches.
