Treating a worker badly and having questionable labor practices, such as not letting someone leave the premises while not paying them, don't necessarily go together. I'm sure Apple treats their retail workers excellently and probably even pays them well. But to say "Okay, your shift is over and we're not paying you anymore -- but you cannot leave the site until we check your bag" could be construed as unlawful detainment in the eyes of an overly aggressive DA looking to make noise during an election year. Until an employee is free to go then they need to be paid for their time.

Sure, but you're assuming that this was a mandated practice by the "evil corporation" when the reality is just that individual managers didn't think this through in their stores. In the store that I worked out of, you had your bag checked, you clocked out, and they walked you out the door (for us it was the back door). There was always someone whose job it was to do this bag checks and they never lasted more than a minute.

This sounds to me like it was more "Manager gets caught up with a customer. Manager tells employee to clock out and then they'll check their bag. Employee goes to the floor to find manager for bag check and has to wait for manager to finish their interaction. Interaction takes longer than 5 minutes so employee is waiting off the clock to have their bag checked." Somehow, that became the norm when the reality should have been "Manager gets caught up with a customer. Manager tells employee they'll check their back and then can clock out. Employee has to wait for manager but gets paid while waiting. Manager checks bag. Employee clocks out and leaves."

I also suspect that part of the reason this became the norm in some stores was that individual managers were risk-averse and wanted employees to clock out first because, otherwise, they get to return to the back room with their bag post-check. If they clock out first, they can leave right after their bag is checked.

It became Apple's problem when some of the workers complained to Tim Cook 8 years ago.[1]

[1] https://www.macrumors.com/2015/06/11/apple-bag-check-lawsuit...

This is the exact lawsuit in question. Was this link supposed to show something?

Apple knew what the managers were doing and could have stopped it.

> such as not letting someone leave the premises while not paying them

Honestly I suspect this is mostly a logistics problem. The clock is in the break room the security check is at the door. A security check in the break room feels a little pointless. But in all fairness my store was rather small and we didn't really do security checks.

Surely Apple can automatically add xx minutes a day to their paycheck or ask them to leave xx minutes early to make up for it.

This is a non-brainier, the employee is still at the premises and cannot leave or clock in until this required thing is done. Imagine a job where you had to do a 1 hour makeup to start the job. Paid or not?

I agree the workers should get paid for the security check, but this doesn't seem like a good example. it takes me half an hour to shower and get dressed for work in the morning. should I get paid for that time? does it change anything if I drive to work in my pajamas and shower/dress on premises?

Showering is a routine thing, not required by your job (well it is kinda required, you can't stink the office but..). My example was makeup required for work, say a clown or actor.

Exactly. Like, you arrive at the door at 9am, clock in, and then go to the person doing the make up. Because the makeup (similar to costume), is something very specific to your job.

Showering and putting on regular clothes is something you would do for getting off your house, independently of what you do. Clown make up is specific to your job

As long as you get dressed back in your pajamas when you leave, ;)

It seems pretty easy to fix this for Apple by relying on video to prove whether employees are in store/breakroom by default and allowing overrides for special circumstances. This might result in Apple paying a few minutes more here and there, but the burden should be on the more powerful party (the company in labor situations).

This doesn't even have to be automated, it could trivially be the manager's job to account for their crew's start/stop by spending max 5 minutes a day with cameras. I believe commercial systems can already automate this if you didn't want to burden your managers with this.

I can walk into an apple store, grab something moderately expensive off the shelf, scan the barcode on my phone, pay for it, then stick it in my bag and leave. Presumably Apple has some method for making sure that people who grab items off of the shelf and put it in their bag aren't stealing. I've never once been stopped by an Apple employee when I've paid via the app. I don't understand how it can be that Apple can accept that level of shop-lifting risk but can't use the same method to reach an acceptable level of risk with respect to employees. Especially since I would expect Apple to trust employees more than random customers, not less.

I can't speak for Apple, but something I was told at GNC that shocked me about the way companies might view their workers is that I, as a white male employee that enjoyed exercise, was always under more suspicion of theft than any customer would be. My manager straight up told me this, there wasn't any inference on my part nor was this some subtle implication. I understand they're different companies and different markets, but now I typically assume that most companies are more suspicious of their employees (the people who spend so much time in the store, who have a better knowledge of security than the average customer, who know what products usually go missing organically, what times someone is likely to be looking at them, etc) than the average random stranger who walks in.

I managed inventory at an Apple store and most of our policies was related to this risk. Since as a employee I'm able to mark a product as unsellable its gives the employee a lot of power to try to steal. Thats why if you look at a stores trash you will NEVER see a Apple product. Everything was sent back to one of the warehouses. even damaged cables. A bad employee can steal a lot more than any single customer. Apple just tries to be nicer about it ... positive intent and all that jazz. ....Hell the trash was the only security check that my store did.

are you the bigwavedave (of bigwavedave.ca)?

Nope. Just a guy who's a fan of an old comedy tape called "Dating 911".

It's sad how many passes people on this site give Apple because they like their design.

I worked in retail for 12 years 4 of those at Apple retail. The treatment at Apple was light years ahead of the other companies. Hell its hard to even find a company that will give part time workers health insurance.

whataboutism doesn't excuse apple from paying people for hours they're required to be at work.

You understand that statement was nowhere near whataboutism, right? All of the examples were about how Apple on avg. treats their employees very well. Whataboutism would be me bringing up the amazon story as a way to counter the criticism.

Or maybe the reality and truth of the situation is a little less sensational so it doesn't get as many clicks yet people can see through that...

It's not though. They literally were requiring unpaid time at work.

No they weren't. They were requiring bag checks and some managers were making employees clock out first.

lol. There's the pass.

>Apple must pay over 12,000 retail workers in California

Yes, it's totally just "some managers".

You do know what a class-action lawsuit is, right?