After a decade of lawsuits, Apple will pay $30 million in damages to its employees. Why ? To close an employee search case that’s been going on for nearly a decade.
In 2013, a class action lawsuit was filed against Apple by its California employees to protest the daily searches imposed on them. Finally, the trial comes to an end.
A decade of trials
Apple employees who then worked in outlets were systematically searched from top to bottom after their day’s work. An unsurprising policy, considering the value of products sold by Apple employees in Apple stores. But the searches, which could sometimes take up to 45 minutes, did not count as hours worked. Employees were therefore stuck in their workplace without pay, every day, for a minimum of fifteen minutes.
So in 2013, 14,683 Apple employees in California filed a class action lawsuit against the practice. The complaint was initially dismissed in 2015, before being reconsidered on appeal. Eventually, in February 2020, the California State Supreme Court ruled that Apple should pay its employees for their time spent being searched.
$30 million in compensation
Therefore, Apple will pay $30.5 million to nearly 15,000 employees. A large part of this money will cover the lawyer’s fees they have had to pay during these nine years of legal battle.
In addition to this unpaid work time, employees have pointed to the practice as humiliating and disrespectful. In 2015, private emails from Apple CEO Tim Cook revealed he was completely unaware of the practice. Once again, Apple does not show itself in its best light…
Source : WCCFTech
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