Eight-years in the making, it looks like Apple’s finally ready to pay employees for time lost standing in line. All the way back in 2013, employees of Apple Retail in California sued Apple for its bag check. Basically, if you brought a bag to work, management or security or somebody had to check that bag before employees left for the day.
It make sense. You wouldn’t want any hardware strolling off. The problem, the way the employees saw it, was they had to clock out before their bags were checked. Few people to check bags versus a large number of bags to check meant a lot of people standing around for a decent amount of time at the end of each shift. That’s time that was required of them, though for which they were not being paid.
Probably prompted by the lawsuit, a piece from MacRumors says Apple dropped the bag check policy six-years ago. Still, the suit raged on until 2020, when the piece says “the U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals said that Apple needed to pay the employees for the time they had spent in bag searches.” Last year, MacRumors says:
Apple and lawyers for the Apple employees in California reached a settlement last year and in November, asked a judge to approve it. Apple has agreed to pay nearly $30 million, and the more than 14,000 workers involved in the lawsuit will receive payments based on the individual shifts worked. Current and former employees will be receiving emails and letters from Apple with specific information about their potential payment amount.
Details about the settlement can be found on Apple’s site.
