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BoxerGT2.5

macrumors 68020
Jun 4, 2008
2,104
14,136
And probably some sort of a change in the policy that created the issue to begin with.

Well that too, but lets not kid ourselves into thinking it's all about the "employees" getting due compensation.
 

C DM

macrumors Sandy Bridge
Oct 17, 2011
51,390
19,458
Well that too, but lets not kid ourselves into thinking it's all about the "employees" getting due compensation.
A change in the policy would be more than they have had so far, so it's still something better and something gained from their point of view.
 

AlecZ

macrumors 65816
Sep 11, 2014
1,173
123
Berkeley, CA
Wow, imagine complaining to your boss that you want those extra 10-30 seconds of payment during a bag check. You'd sound like Julius from Everybody Hates Chris. "That's 9 cents' worth of bag checking!"
 

C DM

macrumors Sandy Bridge
Oct 17, 2011
51,390
19,458
Wow, imagine complaining to your boss that you want those extra 10-30 seconds of payment during a bag check. You'd sound like Julius from Everybody Hates Chris. "That's 9 cents' worth of bag checking!"
Because it's about mere seconds, right?
 

mwd25

macrumors regular
Sep 24, 2012
232
317
Tempe
I'm 100% interested in what you would do with that extra 10 seconds in your day + that extra 10 seconds worth of wage.

Maybe you could buy a single match, strike it (3 seconds depending on whether its first time) and watch it burn for 6 seconds. That last second you ask? That's yours. You've earned it - literally.

You know, this kind of attitude (^^^^^^) is why we had a revolution in this country. Maybe your cool with it in the UK, but over here....not so much. I dont care if its 10 seconds or 10 minutes or 10 hours, its my time. Attitude like that comes from the same people that say, hey just let the police kick in your door whenever they please without a warrant...if your not doing anything wrong,who cares. Let the police stop you and search you whenever they please, if your not hiding anything then no problem. Let the police arrest you and hold you indefinitely without charges, if your innocent you'll be let go......eventually.

By all means,if you're cool with that over in the UK, put up with it. Over here, if I choose to watch a match burn for 10 seconds and you arent paying me........suck it, thats what I want to do,what do you care. Pay me, and you can search my bag for 10 hours, I dont care.
 
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LewisChapman

macrumors 6502a
Jan 10, 2015
600
861
You know, this kind of attitude (^^^^^^) is why we had a revolution in this country. Maybe your cool with it in the UK, but over here....not so much. I dont care if its 10 seconds or 10 minutes or 10 hours, its my time. Attitude like that comes from the same people that say, hey just let the police kick in your door whenever they please without a warrant...if your not doing anything wrong,who cares. Let the police stop you and search you whenever they please, if your not hiding anything then no problem. Let the police arrest you and hold you indefinitely without charges, if your innocent you'll be let go......eventually.

By all means,if you're cool with that over in the UK, put up with it. Over here, if I choose to watch a match burn for 10 seconds and you arent paying me........suck it, thats what I want to do,what do you care. Pay me, and you can search my bag for 10 hours, I dont care.

Your comparison between police breaking & entering and not being paid for 10 seconds is highly relatable.

Here in the UK you are lucky to even get a job due to the employment shortage (arguably caused by immigrants who are willing to work for less money or for longer hours - another discussion). So the likelihood of someone turning around and saying 'Hey what about that extra 10 seconds I did last Friday?' is very small. The minimum wage is not appropriately in proportion with living costs and unemployment, due to our silly benefit system, is actually favoured in some parts of the country.

I'm glad the 'revolution' has worked out for you and I hope you enjoy your compensation culture. Clearly your time is money you must be a very important person - the time it took you to type that comment you could have made some serious bucks my friend!

On another note and to keep on topic - I think the largest issue is not the compensation of time, it's the embarrassment of being search on the shop floor which should never happen.
 

cmm

macrumors 6502a
Apr 30, 2006
841
35
NYC
You need to understand something. Having a job is a PRIVILEGE, not a right. An employer is PAYING money to someone to work for them in that employer's domain.
Let me bring it closer to home. You hire someone to come clean your home and upon leaving they have a bag in their hand that is not a tools of their trade bag. Well that's suspect and hopefully you care enough about your home and what you own to insist on checking their bag before they leave YOUR home, unless you feel they have a right to privacy and you simply let them go, only to find out some very valuable things in your home are missing.

And as far as non-payment, I would certainly like to know how many employees get paid for the extra time they give to their employers for showing up to work 10-15 minutes earlier. Most people have to come to work a few minutes early to prepare for their shift. If they are not ready to work right on time when their shift starts they could get in trouble with their employer, so they have no choice but to come in a few minutes earlier to get prepared. Most employers don't pay for that.

And you're taking this way too far trying to make a point that really is a non-point, in regards to the medicine. Every employer I have worked for that checked bags does not require an employee to pull everything out of their bags. The employer generally looks down in the bag briefly just to check if their merchandise is in the bag. They are not looking to see what type of medicine someone is taking or what brand of lipstick someone is using.
Disregarding your idea that jobs are a privilege, when I hire somebody, I implicitly trust them. That's why they are in my home. I may have loss prevention methods, just like a store does as well--and it's all built into the balance sheet. To be clear, I have a private chef, a housekeeper that comes daily and a personal assistant and all of them has full access to my home; this is not theoretical to me but something I have considered in great length. Going through their personal property without cause does not qualify as being okay. I have talked to my personal assistant who had a similar situation with a prominent UES family and she quit on the spot. Good for her.

Nowhere in the suit does it allege anything was taken; rather this is a preemptive measure which causes every employee to lose their personal time and not be compensated for it and can cause issues with people's losing their privacy (no employer has the right to know your health conditions, there are various legal frameworks in place that make this quite clear). If bag checks were instituted on an ad hoc basis because something went missing and loss prevention followed some protocol that is a separate issue but that is not what is being discussed here so I won't dignify your rant with any more text on your hypothetical situation.

I get some parents in my neighborhood having nanny cams. It's not okay with me. I can see you're fine with it. What a sad world people live in when they hire someone to take care of their business, or their most important thing in their life: Their children and not trust them. Maybe they don't trust themselves.

You are fudging two distinct jobs: (1) retail level jobs of young employees that are paid hourly and (2) jobs meant as a "career" that are typically paid on salary, regardless of hours worked. I would recommend you get the backpay you deserve rather than arguing another group doesn't deserve it. This mindset blows me away.
 
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Jb1982

macrumors newbie
Jul 19, 2015
1
0
When I worked for the fruityard they made you show your serial number on your phone and compare it to a card you had to keep with you. You had to write down all your device serial numbers. MacBook Pros, iPads, iPhones, iPods. Anything Apple. I envied those with Androids who could just leave after clocking out. You had to clock out right at the end of your shift, otherwise you get in trouble for working overtime. Then you had to find a manager, and in a busy store it wasn't easy to spot one.
 

mwd25

macrumors regular
Sep 24, 2012
232
317
Tempe
Your comparison between police breaking & entering and not being paid for 10 seconds is highly relatable.

Here in the UK you are lucky to even get a job due to the employment shortage (arguably caused by immigrants who are willing to work for less money or for longer hours - another discussion). So the likelihood of someone turning around and saying 'Hey what about that extra 10 seconds I did last Friday?' is very small. The minimum wage is not appropriately in proportion with living costs and unemployment, due to our silly benefit system, is actually favoured in some parts of the country.

I'm glad the 'revolution' has worked out for you and I hope you enjoy your compensation culture. Clearly your time is money you must be a very important person - the time it took you to type that comment you could have made some serious bucks my friend!

On another note and to keep on topic - I think the largest issue is not the compensation of time, it's the embarrassment of being search on the shop floor which should never happen.

The comparison was in the attitude of people......based on your comment....like you, who are willing to give up their rights. Then to be clear I gave examples. Obviously I, personally wouldnt complain if it was a quick ten second search of my bag in the back. But we arent talking about just ten seconds. More like 15 minutes but the amount of time doesnt seem to be where our disagreement lies. I have the feeling we just fundamentally disagree about some basic principles. I feel that people have fought and died to secure some very important rights for us. Not just soldiers but workers also. I feel that I deserve to be compensated for my time, be it 10 seconds or 10 minutes or 10 hours. You seem to feel that unless your a "very important person" like I dont know, maybe the king or queen? Then you dont deserve that. If ten seconds isnt worth fighting for is 3 minutes? How about 5 minutes? How about 15 minutes? How about if your employer says you dont get a lunch break? When exactly do your rights or the rights of others become important enough to you?

The second someone attempts to relieve of mine, I fight. I guess you dont. Hence my examples. While they may have not been exactly analogous to this situation, I feel they did speak to peoples attitude on when they feel its important enough to fight back. Too many in my country just piss on them and say go ahead search my car, there isnt anything illegal in it. Go ahead pull me over for nothing, Im not doing anything. By the time it gets to a point that they say, oh wait,NOW you've gone too far, you cant do that, their being herded into a cattle car on their way to a concentration camp.
 
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ScottNWDW

macrumors 65816
Jul 10, 2008
1,231
315
Orlando, Florida
I worked in a retail store inside a mall and it was the stores policy that whenever you left the store, whether it be for break, or to go home, you had to be bag checked. This policy was explained on day one and if you did not agree to it you were free to leave. Any employee, whether they were the newest part-timer all the way up to the President of the company were subject to this check. These bag checks and pat downs took all of maybe 10-20 seconds.
 
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sss4r

macrumors regular
Aug 15, 2007
135
61
I doubt Apple would see a need to do this if "shrinkage" weren't an issue. I'm aware that other retailers do this, and it only take a few seconds to look inside a bag, so I don't understand why it's taking 10-15 minutes?

I'm biased because I've encountered too many snotty Apple Store workers -- they think they're special because they work for Apple. Yet it's the lowest rung on the ladder -- it's just a retail store, get over yourselves. One particularly fat manager at the Richmond Short Pump practically cried over having to type in a number because it wouldn't scan from the hard copy print-out and had the nerve to tell me how I should do it better next time, even though it was an extenuating one-off matter -- what a retard.
 

tbrinkma

macrumors 68000
Apr 24, 2006
1,651
93
Apple was wrong. Pay the people.

I suspect Apple won't even fight it. It's very clear-cut. Search? OK. On MY time? No!

While I agree with you, that it *should* be on company time if the company insists on it, that's not how it actually works.

In fact, this case *is* very clear-cut. It's already been argued, and lost, at the Supreme Court level by Amazon workers.
 
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tbrinkma

macrumors 68000
Apr 24, 2006
1,651
93
Demeaning? No. It's to be expected if you are working for a high-end industry. People who work at precious metal/gem mints and vaults go thru this regularly. But the searches cannot be done off the clock. Once you're off the clock you are no longer under the employment of the company and cannot be held against your will. To be required to stay there for the searches to be done, the employee remains on the clock. So, I don't buy the "demeaning" argument. But the "just compensation" for the extra time (accumulated over days/weeks/months/years), yes.

You're right. You cannot be held against your will (whether off the clock, or not, it makes no difference). However, if you leave without going through the search, you'll be fired *with cause*. That means no unemployment while you try to find a new job.
 

tbrinkma

macrumors 68000
Apr 24, 2006
1,651
93

The sad fact of the matter is this:
You don't have to trust anyone *unless* they can harm you in some way. It's only the people who can do something to harm you that you need to trust at *any* level.

  • Joe Schmoe, lives in Jamaica, and runs a food stand. There's absolutely nothing he can do that can cause you harm unless you visit Jamaica. You don't need to trust him.
  • Jane Schmoe, retail customer in your store. You need to trust her at some level, because if you didn't, you wouldn't let her in your store, and she wouldn't *be* a customer.
  • John Schmoe, retail employee in your store. You need to trust him at some level, because you hired him to do a job. If you didn't trust him to do it, you wouldn't have hired him in the first place.
However, trust has to be maintained. You do something to screw it up, and it's basically *gone*. That's true from either side of the trusting/trusted relationship. Shoplifting will kill the trust needed for the relationship with Jane *or* John.
 
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C DM

macrumors Sandy Bridge
Oct 17, 2011
51,390
19,458
I worked in a retail store inside a mall and it was the stores policy that whenever you left the store, whether it be for break, or to go home, you had to be bag checked. This policy was explained on day one and if you did not agree to it you were free to leave. Any employee, whether they were the newest part-timer all the way up to the President of the company were subject to this check. These bag checks and pat downs took all of maybe 10-20 seconds.
The difference here is that for enough people often enough that process took a considerably longer amount of time.
 
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BoxerGT2.5

macrumors 68020
Jun 4, 2008
2,104
14,136
Hardly. It's a basic human right to be given the opportunity to survive with dignity, and in today's world that means money.

Companies don't hire you out of the goodness of their hearts, they hire you to make them money. On some occasions that crosses the line into exploitation.


That's rather lofty. Having a job is a privilege, it is not a basic human right. Having money isn't a basic human right. An employee and employer have a mutual interest. One needs labor and the other needs compensation at fair market value for their skills. The employee can walk any time he/she wants, get a better opportunity, ect. The employer can fire the employee for a variety of reasons (less discrimination) and that can include a simply reduction in work force at any given time. You think employees who give their job zero notice when they walk give a rip what predicament that puts the business in? It cuts both ways, lets not pretend the business in the devil in all circumstances.

You say companies don't hire you out of the goodness of their hearts, they only hire for employees to make "them" money. As if the employee doesn't get paid. If the employee feels they're being "exploited", WALK. No one is holding a gun to their head and forcing them to stay in any given job.
 

res.ipsa

macrumors newbie
Jul 12, 2015
26
7
San Diego, CA
You said, 'Having a job is a PRIVILEGE, not a right. An employer is PAYING money to someone to work for them in that employer's domain'. Like employees should wake up every morning and pray to their employer for deigning to give them the super privileged right to work for them. Your employer doesn't give two hoots about you or your welfare except if it benefits them in greater productivity or brings them negative publicity. If it was more economical to replace you with a robot they wouldn't think twice, and in every workplace around the world where this is possible it has already been done. You're only useful to your employer if you're making them money.

There are a few exceptions to this rule like the John Lewis Partnership in the UK or Hubbard Cereals in NZ. These are extremely rare though. Curiously both these examples have a grounding in their founders being religious, but I prefer not to comment further on that. It's not something I'm into but maybe that's what it takes for someone to run a socially responsible business?

If you want to talk about rights then it's every person's right to live with dignity, and in the circles everybody here moves in that means money. Money to afford shelter and food at a bare minimum. It's everybody's right for their government to create an environment where they can get a job to earn that money if they're capable, not a privilege.

Therefore your statement, 'Having a job is a PRIVILEGE, not a right', is false.
Thank you! I am a very grateful person but I also don't believe in lowering the standard of respect by which we all owe each other! I expect to work hard, and I expect to be treated with respect. How did we "evolve" into a third-world standard of employment? As to the merits of the case, that is a different matter. However, it should be approached with the understanding that these corporations are becoming extremely wealthy off the backs of their employees. Therefore, it doesn't take a great deal of imagination to see that their employees DO INDEED deserve respect and fair employment.
 

Mums

Suspended
Oct 4, 2011
667
559

Saucesome2000

macrumors 6502
Dec 10, 2014
338
320
Nashville, TN
Sorry I don't know what you mean by "Boom". I am American but have been living in the UK for the past 11 years, and that particular (ghetto?) jargon seems to have eluded me. I have guessed as to its meaning, but have not been able to determine if it is a positive or negative term.
Ah, mud-slinging. It's the generic weapon of choice for those who have nothing intelligent to add to the discussion.
 

maflynn

macrumors Haswell
May 3, 2009
73,448
43,367
[MOD NOTE]
Please stay on topic, this thread is not about salaries, and wages but rather a lawsuit over Apple's practices.
 

giantfan1224

macrumors 6502a
Mar 9, 2012
870
1,115
[MOD NOTE]
Please stay on topic, this thread is not about salaries, and wages but rather a lawsuit over Apple's practices.

Even though the argument was made that employees wouldn't have to steal if apple paid a livable wage? Man, I've seen discussions here venture much further from the "topic" than that.
 

ppenn

macrumors regular
Oct 22, 2013
115
22
As a former Apple Retail employee I can assure that the reason these employees are making these claims goes deeper than a bag check. They probably extremely unhappy with their working conditions and have issues with their managers. I will say that sometimes it was often hard to find a manger not busy to check your back which was annoying but usually just a quick glance in the bag was, just to say they did it.

For those who do not know there are mandatory "tech checks." when you leave your shift. The serial numbers to all of your apple products are written on a card and your manager checks it to make sure the serials match up. If you take an phone, iPod, laptop, and watch to work, yes it may take a minute. I can't imagine a sneer where it takes 10 minutes. something else must be wrong with leadership in this store.
 
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