14 DAY TRIAL // Apple has won a lawsuit against a group of former store employees who asked for additional compensation after spending 10 to 15 minutes every day before and after their shifts to have bags searched by security staff.
The bag searches, which are described as “demoralizing,” were performed before and after work, and employees had to wait up to 15 minutes in line, the suit claims. Apple was thus asked to pay for the additional time store workers had to spend for bag searches which, according to a Bloomberg estimate, can reach as much as $60 million (48 million EUR), plus penalties, for a six-year period and covering 12,400 former and current employees.
The judge, however, claimed that Apple couldn't be forced to pay extra for the bag searches, simply because workers do not necessarily have to bring a bag to work. As a result, staff that left bags at home didn't have to wait in line for the search, U.S. District Judge William Alsup explained.
“It is undisputed that some employees did not bring bags to work and thereby did not have to be searched when they left the store,” he pointed out.
CEO Tim Cook didn't know about the bag checks
The lawsuit, originally filed in June 2015, claimed that Apple was already aware of the bag searches, with a company worker reportedly telling CEO Tim Cook that store managers were required “to treat valued employees as criminals.”
Lawsuit papers also showed that all these checks were performed specifically to discourage theft, with another worker complaining to Cook that the company treated store staff “as animals and thieves.” There have also been accusations that in some retail locations, managers decided to block emergency exits with Apple product boxes to have better control of workers when entering and exiting the stores.
Surprisingly, CEO Tim Cook said a few months ago that he didn't know that retail locations were performing bag searches for workers, but nevertheless, no policy change has since been made.