Honza Dvorsky Two former employees of Apple's brick-and-mortar stores have filed a class-action lawsuit against the Cupertino company for lost wages. Whenever employees leave an Apple Store, their personal belongings are checked for stolen products. However, this process only takes place after the end of working hours, so employees are not reimbursed for the time spent in the store. This can be up to 30 minutes of extra time per day, as most employees leave the stores at the same time and queues form at the controls.
This policy has been in place at Apple Stores for over 10 years and could theoretically affect thousands of former and current employees. Thus, a class-action lawsuit may receive strong support from all affected Apple Store employees. We must mention, however, that the problem only concerns the so-called Apple 'Hourly Employees' (employees paid by the hour), to whom Apple increased their salaries by 25% exactly one year ago and added many benefits. So the question remains whether this is a fair objection or just an attempt by former employees to "squeeze" as much as they can out of Apple.
The lawsuit does not yet specify how much financial compensation it seeks and in what amount, only that it accuses Apple of violating the Fair Labor Standards Act (the law on working conditions) and other laws specific to individual states. The lawsuit was filed in a Northern California court, and according to the authors themselves, it has the best chance of success in the states of California and New York, where the two authors of the lawsuit are from. Apple's legal department will therefore have a bit more work to do.
For example, in the Czech Republic, a personal inspection by the employer is regulated by the provisions of § 248 paragraph 2 of Act No. 262/2006 Coll., Labor Code, (see explanation). This law allows for a personal search in order to minimize the damage caused to the employer, e.g. by stealing products from the store. However, the law does not mention the employer's obligation to compensate. So maybe in the future we will face a similar trial in our country as well.
It appears that the obligation to compensate employees for the time spent on the search is not even specified in US law, and so the two sides will be competing for a court decision that will set a precedent for the future. So it's not just Apple, but all the big retail chains that proceed in a similar way. We will continue to monitor the court and inform about the news.
That sentence is supposed to say what?
For example, in the Czech Republic, personal inspection by the employer is regulated [GigaOm.com and Macrumors.com
Sorry, it's an error when copying from iA Writer to the system, it's already being worked on :-)