Lawsuit by Apple Retail Employees Over Off-the-Clock Bag Searches Dismissed

[MagnusVonMagnum]

I guess you didn't realize my last two posts were sarcasm.

Obviously you are missing the point. If you NEED to bring the bag to work, then you NEED to have your bag checked at the end of the day. If you don't want to comply, don't bring the bag. Bring your lunch to work in a brown bag. Throw away the bag when done.

No, I think you don't get it at all. Some of these employees are waiting upwards of an HOUR to have their bag checked. I don't care what fantasy land you might prefer to inhabit than the real world, that is not reasonable and if it's going to take management THAT long then they should either change their policy (even to not allow bags so at least it's consistent and isn't leading to ridiculous things like that) or compensate the people they are basically holding hostage at that point.

So many people bring personal bags to work that are so big they look like Samsonite luggage.

This sounds like creative supposition rather than actual facts for some reason.

These personal bags are filled with personal effects. They will spend paid company time on the job using these personal effects and have no problem with that at all. It's their "right" I guess. They don't

More made up supposition. You might imply that they are loading their bags with hard drives and sneaking out the back door while you're at it. I mean why not? Don't let an inconvenient truth get in your way of putting down employees and defending the multi-billionaire corporation that "cares" about how gay people are mistreated (and he should care), but mistreats their own employees like they're fracking slaves and pays them jack while the CEO lives it up like he's the only person that can sit at a desk and tell others to do all his work for him. I see just a bit of hypocrisy there.

Now before you give some nonsense lecture about what a great CEO he is, please care to includes all the awesome things Apple has done since Steve Jobs has died like let the competition get ahead of them, put out products that are already outdated on the day they're released and spend more time on making things look flat than fixing actual bugs and/or making OS X and iOS more reliable (you know something useful).

Entitlement at it's ultimate definition! That's something you NEED to learn.

You strike me as being SO out of touch with reality. When someone whines and whines an whines about "entitlements" that equate to holding employees up to an hour after work as if they were hostages, I think you need to just leave thread because you've lost. Period. There wouldn't be a lawsuit if employees were getting their bags checked in a reasonable amount of time (i.e. a few minutes). No, it's gross negligence at work here by blaming the employees for "bringing a bag" rather than the employer for not taking care of bag checks in an organized and timely fashion.

There seems to be a lot of the use of the word "entitlement" to mean something "horrible" when it is in fact the right-wing media that throws the word around that way because it directly impacts their own pocket books. Those that have aren't happy that they have it, but rather want to take it away from those that barely have anything at all by comparison. And THERE lies the real evils and problems of the modern world, even though it differs very little from the old world. Does someone check Tim Cook's possessions when he comes to work? Of course not.

Most of the people whining about "entitlements" in this world fall into one of two categories:

1> Uber Rich top 1% that ARE the definition of "entitlement" but want to keep everyone else as peasants that can't possibly move up and threaten the lifestyles of the rich and scum bags.

2> People who have been brainwashed by those in #1 (e.g. Rush Limbaugh types) to believe their propaganda using fear and redirection (it's those illegal immigrants that are taking your jobs and food out of your babies' mouths, not us CEOs sending those jobs over to China to pay 10 cents an hour instead of a whopping $8 an hour (with no benefits) while they earn $200-500 MILLION a year on average and actually believe they are worth that much.

Of course, if we had FAIR trade laws instead of "free" trade laws, those pesky inequalities between 10 cents and hour and $8 an hour wouldn't exist since tariffs and the like would ensure that trade between first and third world countries are kept in check so companies can't take advantage of slave labor to make more profits for themselves only while giving their employees the boot. After all, corporations are people. But unlike people, corporations don't "feel" or have any morality what-so-ever. And that's because they are not people. That basic ruling alone has done more harm than possibly any other court ruling in history.

They say that those that don't learn from history are doomed to repeat it. The problem I see is that one day when greed chokes the life out of everyone but the top 1%, the other 99% eventually will come for the top 1% to make things more equal one way or another and that probably wont' be a happy day for those people. I've read about the French Revolution, but apparently some of these people were absent in history class that day or something. Was that right back then? No, of course not. But any monetary market has "corrections" in it sooner or later. It would be better to correct problems before they get too far out of control. But that would mean some having a little less NOW rather than all of it taken from them later and greed being what it is means the rich will always bet on it happening to someone else.

They never learn that being treated fairly, reasonably and with dignity SHOULD be "entitlements" that EVERY SINGLE PERSON ON EARTH should expect. Sadly, there are those that think only they should have respect. Only they should get paid well or have health care. They are sadly mistaken.

And no, I don't work at Apple. I make far more than these employees, but that doesn't mean I cannot relate to them as I came from a poor family and I know what it's like. I also know Apple probably spent more on their lawyers to fight this case than it would have cost them to settle it with a more reasonable approach and the sheer stink of the hypocrisy of people like Tim Cook giving speeches about one class of people being mistreated while having his own company mistreat other groups just plain STINKS.

What is the definition of good and the definition of evil, after all? Many people think of serial killers and the like when they think of evil, but ALL evil has its root at the desire of an individual to put his own self before all others, even at very high costs indeed. True good is putting others ahead of oneself. Most people lie somewhere in-between those extremes, but I see the people that have constantly moving the flag marker further and further towards themselves. Whatever progress the US made in the past one hundred years is being eroded and erased more and more each day. But what are the hidden costs?

Happy people don't start revolutions. Happy people don't rock boats. Happy people don't cause trouble. Unhappy people, OTOH are far more unpredictable. Germany didn't become what it did after World War I because the people there were happy, well-to-do people, after all. Russia didn't fall to revolution because the people were happy, well fed workers. Unions weren't formed in the USA because the workers we well treated and happy. No, misery breeds the more extreme actions of history. Let the courts and governments and corporations and rich folk keep putting down all courts cases, all protests, all strikes, etc. etc. and see where it gets them. I KNOW where it gets them and if they knew like I know, they would think two or three or even twenty times before taking many of the actions they routinely take on a daily basis making their "management" decisions. No, they don't give it a second thought because it doesn't affect them...or so they think.

It's real easy for some on here to dismiss this all and shake their fist at these bastards that want "entitlements". But I can guarantee you that the people doing that are not the ones affected. They are not the ones with monetary problems or without a job or making $7 or $8 an hour. There's NO WAY ON EARTH it's those people defending Apple unless they are touched in the head. No, it's the people that already have something or PLAN TO GET IT ONE DAY that think like that. I know. I used to be like that too at one time. But that's what leads to conflict. That's what leads to revolutions. That's what leads to wars and the truly wise people are the ones that realize it before it's too late.

This? It's just a bag check. It's just a small thing. But it's a sign of far greater problems brewing under the surface. Are kids "spoiled" today? Sure, many are. But that's not it at all. There are a lot of people out there that got college degrees and still can't find a good job. Well go get re-trained some cry! Yeah, go into more debt to get another job that will be excessed or given to a robotic work force (the new thing being pushed to wipe out jobs everywhere). Why not, right? Your parents worked to pay off a house. You are paying to pay off your tuition with a job you never got! It all really comes down the haves and the have nots and the have nots outnumber the haves by about 99-to-1.

 

[C DM]

-__- Another complete evasion of the fact that 2 parties have a right to agree to the terms of their relationship without the government sticking it's nose in. God it's just boring.

Not how things work in the real world, which is actually in fact factual.

 

[Z400Racer37]

Not how things work in the real world, which is actually in fact factual.

Aaand another evasion.

Translation: Not how things actually in fact work now. Since this is not how they actually in fact work now, I will assert that how things actually in fact work now is to be considered "the real world," and that any logical, principled rejection of this spectacle will be considered impractical and invalid, because it's not what's happening now in the "the real world."

You tell me where the government gets any right to violate MY right to a free and voluntary association with WHOMEVER I want, in whatever capacity I want. Try not to evade again.

 

[C DM]

Aaand another evasion.

Translation: Not how things actually in fact work now. Since this is not how they actually in fact work now, I will assert that how things actually in fact work now is to be considered "the real world," and that any logical, principled rejection of this spectacle will be considered impractical and invalid, because it's not what's happening now in the "the real world."

You tell me where the government gets any right to violate MY right to a free and voluntary association with WHOMEVER I want, in whatever capacity I want. Try not to evade again.

The fact that there are labor and all kinds of other regulations and laws. So clearly not anything and everything under the sun goes. If you are talking about that it shouldn't be that way or anything like that, that's a whole different discussion that is beyond what's in question here.

 

[Z400Racer37]

The fact that there are labor and all kinds of other regulations and laws. So clearly not anything and everything under the sun goes. If you are talking about that it shouldn't be that way or anything like that, that's a whole different discussion that is beyond what's in question here.

So then tell me where it is just for the government to go in and retroactively undo an agree,eat which was made between an employer and an employee, to force the employer to pay the employee more than they agreed to at the beginning of their employment period. ... And "conditions" which they continually accepted every time they went to work.

Now some employees don't like it anymore, so the government should hear a case about how the employees don't like the terms they agreed to anymore? Is that it?

 

[C DM]

So then tell me where it is just for the government to go in and retroactively undo an agree,eat which was made between an employer and an employee, to force the employer to pay the employee more than they agreed to at the beginning of their employment period. ... And "conditions" which they continually accepted every time they went to work.

Now some employees don't like it anymore, so the government should hear a case about how the employees don't like the terms they agreed to anymore? Is that it?

Is challenging various practices a new thing somehow? Has been happening for ages, sometimes resulting in various regulations and laws, sometimes in other less official changes, other times not.

 

[Z400Racer37]

Is challenging various practices a new thing somehow? Has been happening for ages, sometimes resulting in various regulations and laws, sometimes in other less official changes, other times not.

No, it's nothing new, but just because the initiation of force by government into private affairs is old, does not mean that should be considered permissible or virtuous. The only principle which can be considered moral in this instance is that the government has absolutely no business sticking his nose into a voluntary relationship. The judge was absolutely right to throw this case out.

 

[C DM]

No, it's nothing new, but just because the initiation of force by government into private affairs is old, does not mean that should be considered permissible or virtuous. The only principle which can be considered moral in this instance is that the government has absolutely no business sticking his nose into a voluntary relationship. The judge was absolutely right to throw this case out.

They are already in the relationship and have been for a long time due to the fact that without regulations all kinds of abuses from one side or another have been happening. But that's a whole different essentially philosophical discussion that isn't really something for this thread, so I'll leave it at that.

 

[Z400Racer37]

They are already in the relationship and have been for a long time due to the fact that without regulations all kinds of abuses from one side or another have been happening. But that's a whole different essentially philosophical discussion that isn't really something for this thread, so I'll leave it at that.

That's just absurd. If one party doesn't like what the other is doing, they are free to leave at any time. It's not philosophical, it's reality. If neither party leaves the relationship, then both must be benefiting from it.

Just because they've been there for a while doesn't give them the right to be there. You have been evading that fact this whole time because you can't offer a logical refutation based on reality and rationality, and you can't offer that refutation because it doesn't exist. Simple as that.

 

[C DM]

That's just absurd. If one party doesn't like what the other is doing, they are free to leave at any time. It's not philosophical, it's reality. If neither party leaves the relationship, then both must be benefiting from it.

Just because they've been there for a while doesn't give them the right to be there. You have been evading that fact this whole time because you can't offer a logical refutation based on reality and rationality, and you can't offer that refutation because it doesn't exist. Simple as that.

The reality is that business and employment regulations of all kinds exist and have exited for many years. There's no denying or arguing with that simple and plain reality.

 

[Z400Racer37]

The reality is that business and employment regulations of all kinds exist and have exited for many years. There's no denying or arguing with that simple and plain reality.

Nobody is arguing that, I am arguing that they do not have the right to be there, regardless of how long they have ben there, as you full well know.

 

[C DM]

Nobody is arguing that, I am arguing that they do not have the right to be there, regardless of how long they have ben there, as you full well know.

Clearly in the context of the existing society it seems that they do given how long they have been there, otherwise in all that time they would have already been challenged successfully, which clearly hasn't happened as they are still there. In any case, as I mentioned before, the whole overall philosophical discussion of the role of government or regulations or laws in society and what's right or wrong, while interesting, is well beyond what would fit in this thread.

 

[Z400Racer37]

Clearly in the context of the existing society it seems that they do given how long they have been there, otherwise in all that time they would have already been challenged successfully, which clearly hasn't happened as they are still there. In any case, as I mentioned before, the whole overall philosophical discussion of the role of government or regulations or laws in society and what's right or wrong, while interesting, is well beyond what would fit in this thread.

Another attempt to justify immoral laws by the fact that they've been around for a while. You're saying they have a right because they've been doing it. Slavery ha been around for longer in plenty of countries, do they have a right to implement its use? Does, say, North Korea, have a right to oppress its citizens in the way that they do? Because they've been doing it for a while? It's clearly not a valid standard.

Everything is philosophical in some respect or another, so that's irrelevant. What is relevant to this thread is the fact that:

1. Apple wants to employ these people
2. The employees want to work for Apple.
3. The government has no right telling either party that they don't have the right to exercise their free will and judgement to associate, simply because there is an exchange of currency involved in the process.

These facts are irrefutable, and that is why the judge was right to file this case in the garbage where it belongs. Simple as that.

 

[C DM]

Another attempt to justify immoral laws by the fact that they've been around for a while. You're saying they have a right because they've been doing it. Slavery ha been around for longer in plenty of countries, do they have a right to implement its use? Does, say, North Korea, have a right to oppress its citizens in the way that they do? Because they've been doing it for a while? It's clearly not a valid standard.

Everything is philosophical in some respect or another, so that's irrelevant. What is relevant to this thread is the fact that:

1. Apple wants to employ these people
2. The employees want to work for Apple.
3. The government has no right telling either party that they don't have the right to exercise their free will and judgement to associate, simply because there is an exchange of currency involved in the process.

These facts are irrefutable, and that is why the judge was right to file this case in the garbage where it belongs. Simple as that.

Like I said, that's a philosophical/political discussion, and one that is also way beyond what fits in this thread.

 

[David.Kennedy]

Do you think a big, national retailers expecting their employees to wait around 15-20 minutes is reasonable?

Yes, yes I do.

I'm late to the game on this topic, and I had respect for both sides of the debate until this one short sentence.

When you read something like this, you just have to throw in the towel on the debate, and thank your lucky stars that there are *usually* laws the protect workers from things like this. It is because of people like this that the laws exist in the first place.

There is no shortage of people in the USA who treat low-level workers with contempt. There are any number of psychological profiles which explain it, although their numbers ebb and flow as time goes on.

Companies will exploit whatever power imbalance that they can, and employees will occasionally fight back, and thank goodness they do or we'd still have sweatshops.

Just because sweatshops (mostly) ended in this country, though, it doesn't mean that everyone agrees with them being gone. There are still people in this country, lots of people, who resent worker rights, and are outright hostile toward workers who try to exercise them. There always will be people like this too. Arguing with them on a message board will not change their minds.

Some people think it's acceptable for employees to hold employees for 20 minutes without pay. Some people think it's acceptable to hold employers for an hour without pay. Some number of people would support employers holding employees for 8 hours without pay. I guarantee you that these people do exist. What can you do to make them change their mind? Absolutely nothing. If everyone agreed on things, there would be no laws.

In general, an employee is either on the clock or free to go. There are some exceptions to this, but for the majority of workers, it's been the case for a few decades at least. Not being free to leave, yet also not been paid, is generally a bad thing.

Sure, the Supreme Court might say it's okay, but the Supreme Court said slavery was okay too. Until it didn't. The ruling-class is always hesitant to give power to the working-class. That's about as new as the sun rising in the East.

I join the ranks of those disappointed in Apple, yet hardly am I surprised. The wealth gap continues to grow, companies continue to consolidate, the middle-class continues to shrink, the country becomes more and more divided, and, well, something going to give. I'll tell you one thing, though, the wealthy are going to be vastly outnumber when it all shakes out, so hey, if you want to hold employees without paying them because a rich ivory-tower judge said you could ... hey, knock yourself out. I'm sure they'll remain loyal and do everything they can to ensure your continued success.

I mean, they just gotta. Right?

 

[David.Kennedy]

Seriously this is just pathetic. How long does it take for someone to check your bag when you leave work at the end of the day? Thirty seconds. Maybe a minute at most. It's not like they are being asked to hang around for half an hour or so. I bet Apple's employees take much more time than a bag check takes visiting the bathroom each day. Talk about ridiculous.

The working-class whines too much. So the wealth gap keeps growing and growing, what's an extra 20 seconds to hand over to the ruling-class, eh? I mean, they should be grateful for the opportunity to give them 20 seconds, amirite?

The lower class is so lame.

Now the rich folks, those are the ones you can really get behind, right? Whether they're born into it, they get it through fraud and malfeasance, or they earn it legitimately, the ruling-class is the bomb-dizzle baby!

What they should do, is replace the working-class workers, with ruling-class workers. Then we might actually get something done without having to listen to all that whining.