I'm confused as to what a "bag check" is in this context. Is it that one employee at a store checks the bag (presumably a purse or backpack) of another employee?
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Apple to Face Class Action Lawsuit Over Off-the-Clock Employee Bag Checking
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I'm confused as to what a "bag check" is in this context. Is it that one employee at a store checks the bag (presumably a purse or backpack) of another employee?
But if you actually finish and are in fact leaving out the door and you are stopped and told you can't leave and have to wait for some time until a a manager frees up to check your bag (let's say it turns out to be 12 minutes, and that happens in a similar fashion on most days)...somehow that doesn't fit as nicely into that narrative.
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You're conflated two completely unrelated issues and introduced a straw man. Any particular driver is a generally a person with whom you have no legal or contractual connection to. They can attempt to command you, but you have no obligation to listen. You can give him the finger and move on.
With Apple, the accusation is company policy required employees to not be paid to wait inside the store after their shift ended. Unlike the slow driver, there is a contractual relationship between the parties. Plaintiffs claim they were not free to leave for extended periods after their shift ended. They had to wait to get their bag checked. Under California law, they were subject to employer control and should be paid for having to wait.
Yes. Anyone who brings in a "bag," be it a backpack, purse, or something else has it checked before leaving. In every retail setting I know of, it is a manager, supervisor, or some other leadership position. The plaintiffs are saying they had to wait after their shift ended for the right person to come and check their bags. That could have taken 5, 10, 15, 20 minutes (or longer) before they were allowed to leave, without pay.
The lawsuit is crap. I worked for Apple Retail for several years. Everyone knows about the bag checks when they get hired. It is part of the deal. The bag checks take seconds, not 10 to 15 minutes. Customers do not gawk. Both of those claims are simple misunderstandings by the plaintiffs. If you cannot manage the bag checks, then go get a better retail job. Good luck with that. As a retail employer, Apple is the best. But Apple needs to protect itself against employees who steal.
If what you say is true and it truly takes seconds, your statement is correct. If it takes 15 minutes plus on a daily basis, then your statement is false. I agree with you and everyone else about Apple's right to check bags, but not paying a non-salary employee for time worked is illegal.
Leaving at 5 on the dot and what was mentioned here is totally different. If the plaintiffs are correct about what they say, then it could lead to 6-7 hours of unpaid time a month.
This is all based on me assuming these are hourly employees and not salary. If they are salary, then it is okay for Apple to do this.
Another point, if waiting 20 minutes or more each day without getting paid is okay, then where does it stop? If they were made to wait 45 minutes, and hour, or two? At what point does it seem not okay?
If it was just the part of getting your bag checked, I'd agree with you, but working uncompensated for what could be many hours in a few weeks time is not right.
there is no contractual relationship once you finish your hours of work. once you clock out you are a regular person. If apple wants to search you they have to treat you like an ordinary citizen with all those rights, i.e. you can demand a police officer to be present for a search. Now if apple wants to search you whilst you are clocked in and still under their employment then thats different.
If every employee demands a police officer present apple can't sack everyone, so it will be forced to change its policy and search whilst you're still clocked in, ergo you will all be paid.
Its ****ing simple people.
Why not have the smarmy bouncer at the entrance of the Apple store who always asks you to state your business check the bags when leaving it'd only take a few seconds then and everyone would be happy.
I think it´s a legal issue, like with "normal" shoplifting.
If still on the clock and in the store then it´s not technically stolen yet since you could claim "I was going to pay for that".
But if you still have an unpaid item with you after you checked out and left the store then it´s by all definitions stolen.
Ummm... Checking bags going INTO places for security reasons is a helluva lot different than checking employees bags who have clocked OUT as they leave work. Nice try though. Cmon, man.
The bottom line is that whether it takes one second or one hour, people should be compensated for their time and Apple ought to know this. Is Apple a little low on cash or something these days? Five hundred eleventy trillion million in untaxed cash isn't enough. We get it. Please.
It's simple if you don't understand the applicable law. California Labor Code §11040(2)(k) "[h]ours worked" means the time during which an employee is subject to the control of an employer. Now, to say the contractual relation ends when you clock out is a ludicrous statement. You can still have outstanding promises you must keep, even when not working, as a condition of employment. Even if it did end, these employees should be paid because they can clock out, but still be subject to the employer's control. Here, the plaintiffs are saying they had to wait in the store, off the clock, for a manager to actually begin the bag check. Saying "You can't leave until I say so" is exercising control, meaning they must pay the employee under California law.
It's time to introduce bag searches for customers in apple stores! Just a few minutes of your own time, seems a lot of people are cool with that on this thread
I didn't think the public had access to the 'staff only' areas such as store rooms, nor did the public handle stock, faulty/replacement hardware etc etc etc, so as you have corrected me on this, lets search the customers also as it's only fair.
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.
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You're saying that you never had to wait after you clocked out for a manager to be available to check your bag? Sorry, I call BS... If someone clocks out for a 30 minute lunch and they have to stand around for 10 minutes while a manager finishes up with a customer so their bag can be checked they should get paid for that time. I can't even understand how anyone could argue against it.
As for the 100 or so posters who bring up the SCOTUS decision, I'm guessing these people haven't had a 7th grade civics class and don't know that different states have different laws and not all state laws are federal laws. Labor laws in California are completely different.
I worked for apple back when the first iPhone came out till the 3rd generation came out.
Bag checks may take 10-15 seconds...... when they do them.
Waiting for them to check your bags can take as long as 15 - 30 min.
Not only do you have to wait for a Manager to be available.
You also have to wait your turn, you are not the only one that needs their bags checked. (and at times, the bag checks were stopped when the manager was needed on the floor).
As far as it being embarrassing, I never thought it was. Then again, I didn't carry tampons and other needs woman have and need. You had managers stick their hand in there, and take stuff out, this searches weren't in private everyone can see what you had and then comments came.
Bag searches in my opinion should be on the clock.
If I was hired to be there from 7am to 3pm, why do I have to be there any later then 3pm?
To those who ask why then bring a bag to work if its a pain, lets see since I wasn't given a parking pass (since I wasn't a full time worker - yet I worked upwards of 35 hours per week) I had to park almost a mile away to try and save a little money since I was going to school. So I carried my rain coat as it often rains were I live, and a sweater in-case it got cold.
This is quite comical. Are you totally serious? I hope not. No employee should have any merchandise in their bag and saying, " I was going to pay for that". They could also simply pull it off the shelf and pay for it on their lunch break. They could also pull the item off the shelf and hand it to a manager and say, "I wanna pay for this after or upon the end of my shift".
Stuffing any store merchandise in their bag is suspect.
Former Apple Store employee here. Loving all these comments from people who are making wild guesses as to how Apple stores work.
I worked at the largest Apple Store in the country- the 5th Avenue store in NYC- a couple of years ago. We were subjected to bag checks any time we left the premises. What's interesting to me is that this lawsuit claims that managers were performing bag checks. At my store, plainclothes security guards performed the checks and they were indeed sometimes in front of customers- sometimes in front of customers you had just helped which was a little embarrassing (the employee exit was next to the bathrooms so there were many customers hanging out there).
For employees at smaller stores I'm sure these bag checks don't take more than a minute but at my store, with well over 800 employees at the time of my employment, you had anywhere from 20 to 30 people getting off a shift at the same time. Everyone was eager to get out of there so the bag check line would get backed up consistently. Oftentimes I would be waiting for the 10-15 minutes as the lawsuit claims.
The other issue was that the guard performing the checks was also in charge of manning the entrance into the restricted employee-only areas. He could get preoccupied very easily, letting other employees or deliverymen in through the doors or directing customers where to go. This would just add on to our wait times creating a very frustrating situation. To top it all off, these guards would just glance in your bag, barely looking for anything. So you'd have to wait for ten minutes sometimes just to have a guy peer into your bag for a split-second.
To top it all off, 5th Ave employees had to exit via the main entrance in the middle of the store. For those of you who don't know, the 5th Avenue store is one of the busiest stores in the world and getting in and out of it at peak times is an absolute nightmare. Employees argued constantly with managers to open up a special employee entrance/exit so we could easily get in and out but for whatever reason it never happened while I was there. Maybe it's changed now since this was a few years back. I hope it has.
TL;DR- Bag checks are a big problem at the larger, busier Apple Stores.
I worked at the largest Apple Store in the country- the 5th Avenue store in NYC- a couple of years ago. We were subjected to bag checks any time we left the premises. What's interesting to me is that this lawsuit claims that managers were performing bag checks. At my store, plainclothes security guards performed the checks and they were indeed sometimes in front of customers- sometimes in front of customers you had just helped which was a little embarrassing (the employee exit was next to the bathrooms so there were many customers hanging out there).
For employees at smaller stores I'm sure these bag checks don't take more than a minute but at my store, with well over 800 employees at the time of my employment, you had anywhere from 20 to 30 people getting off a shift at the same time. Everyone was eager to get out of there so the bag check line would get backed up consistently. Oftentimes I would be waiting for the 10-15 minutes as the lawsuit claims.
The other issue was that the guard performing the checks was also in charge of manning the entrance into the restricted employee-only areas. He could get preoccupied very easily, letting other employees or deliverymen in through the doors or directing customers where to go. This would just add on to our wait times creating a very frustrating situation. To top it all off, these guards would just glance in your bag, barely looking for anything. So you'd have to wait for ten minutes sometimes just to have a guy peer into your bag for a split-second.
To top it all off, 5th Ave employees had to exit via the main entrance in the middle of the store. For those of you who don't know, the 5th Avenue store is one of the busiest stores in the world and getting in and out of it at peak times is an absolute nightmare. Employees argued constantly with managers to open up a special employee entrance/exit so we could easily get in and out but for whatever reason it never happened while I was there. Maybe it's changed now since this was a few years back. I hope it has.
TL;DR- Bag checks are a big problem at the larger, busier Apple Stores.