
Apple store workers should be paid for time waiting to be searched, court rules - danso
https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2020-02-13/apple-workers-paid-for-searches
======
jrockway
> Employees are supposed to find a manager or security officer to do the
> searches after they clock out. Employees estimate that waiting for and
> undergoing the searches can take five to 20 minutes, or, on busiest days, up
> to 45 minutes.

This also seems to be their process for picking up orders at the store. It's
pure chaos, and I find it at least somewhat amusing that at least Apple treats
their employees and customers identically.

~~~
FriendlyNormie
Does Apple really have a “process” for picking items up? I ordered a maxed out
iMac Pro for around $15,000 and waited nearly a month for it to finally arrive
at the store. I got a voice mail and an email instructing me to come pick it
up. Only upon driving all the way to the store was I finally informed in
person that they “accidentally” gave my iMac Pro to the wrong customer an hour
ago who had merely ordered a base model iMac. Their solution was to reorder
mine and I’d need to wait yet another month to get it. I don’t really see how
it’s possible to hand an online order to the wrong customer. The customer name
is in large bold text on the barcode sticker on the box that they scan before
completing the sale. The employees weren’t able to explain how it happened.
They didn’t even try to articulate a process by which they would discover who
was responsible. Just told me they were totes sorry and stuff.

They went to great lengths to avoid any communication about the theft taking
place through Apple’s systems. They intentionally made me waste my time to
come in person before telling me what would happen next.

I believe an Apple Store employee knew what orders were coming to the store
and he wanted mine for himself, so he conspired with his friend to come pick
it up for the price of a base model iMac.

I was recently interested in buying a maxed out Mac Pro for 50k+ but this
experience has frightened me into avoiding expensive custom orders from Apple.
Furthermore I don’t want to risk some rogue employee’s goons taking it to the
next level by physically attacking me and robbing me on the way to my car. I’m
probably not going to order a Mac Pro until I can find bodyguards to hire to
escort me from the store through the shopping center and to my car. Which
means I’ll probably never order a Mac Pro. None of this is sarcasm or
hyperbole.

Are you listening, Tim? Probably not.

~~~
jrockway
In the minds of the corporate workers that came up with the Apple Store Brand
Story, every Apple Store employee is your best friend and will jump at the
opportunity to assist you, Apple's most loyal customer, with anything you
need. So of course they're not going to make you wait in line like the PC Guy
from those ads from 10 years ago would; they will be waiting for you when you
walk in, just like Hachikō waited each night for his owner at Shibuya station.
For nine years after he died.

Over in the real world, the employees have spent 10 hours of their 12 hour
shift explaining to the world's least-technically-adept people how to activate
their Verizon service with 4 prepaid debit cards and a ripped $20 bill. Sixty
times. While being yelled at. So... they might accidentally not notice you if
you just come in and don't aggressively try to attract their attention. I do
not blame them.

~~~
soperj
>ripped $20 bill

This is a hilarious problem to anyone who has been using polymer bills for
nearly a decade.

~~~
HeWhoLurksLate
Um, polymer bills rip too.

~~~
soperj
only if they're cut. In practice I can tell you how many ripped bills I've
dealt with since we've had them. 0.

~~~
stuaxo
The plastic money introduced in the UK can rip.

Once it has a small tear, it very easily tears the rest of the way.

Once it is folded it never goes flat again.

They also feel really cheap.

~~~
shawabawa3
> They also feel really cheap.

I thought that at first.

Now the old ones feel really cheap to me. I guess you just get used to it

------
cletus
Good.

If the company makes you do something, it’s work.

~~~
tropdrop
I only wish this would carry to non-California locations and to the service
industry in general - when I worked as a waiter in a Rocky Mountain West
state, after ending a shift we were not allowed to leave the premises until
rolling exactly 100 sets of silverware. If no silverware was available, we
would also have to run them through the dishwasher 2-3 times. We additionally
had to perform two other "closing" tasks (e.g. restocking a particular mini-
fridge, wiping down floor). This is pretty standard in the restaurant industry
- the only problem is that in this state, servers are paid $2.15/hour, with
the assumption that they'll make the rest up to minimum wage by serving
tables.

Anyway, some nights it would take me 1.5-2 hours to leave (not atypical), and
I would get a whopping $4 of pay for that time.

~~~
ck425
That sounds more like an issue with the tips system. It's one fo the worst
things about visiting the USA, combined with taxes not being in the price that
is.

------
8ytecoder
As a thought experiment, what if companies are made to pay for commute time?
How would that change the labour market? Would they hire local? Provide better
transportation? Work with cities to reduce congestion? Encourage more remote
work? Decide it's too expensive to hire workers and cut hours? Work towards
more inclusive housing?

~~~
megablast
That is way unfair to the company, when you will have certain people who are
'happy' to travel 1.5 hours each way. This seems insane to me, but there are
plenty of people who do this and see no issue at all.

How would a company hire local anyway, by rejecting candidates who live to far
away? What if they promise to move, but don't end up doing it?

> Work with cities to reduce congestion?

The only real working way to do that is to ask them to introduce a congestion
charge, which I am all for.

~~~
outadoc
In France this problem is solved by the company compensating for 50% of the
commute. Turns out not many people are "happy" about a 3-hour daily commute.

~~~
globuous
I believe that's only if you use public transport through the Pass Navigo. I'm
not sure individual tickets are reimbursed, and I'm pretty sure gas isn't
either.

But getting 50% off of your Navigo, which is a monthly pass allowing you
unlimited use of Paris and greater Paris public transports. Which is about 75
euros. So when your are subsidised by your company with respect to public
transport, you have unlimited access to all public transport in and around
Paris for 38 euros. Which is nuts because the Parisian public transport
network is crazy (metros, trams, buses, transiliens, RERs).

~~~
baud147258
you can get individual tickets reimbursed too, my mom is working part-time
around Paris and she keeps her used tickets as a proof of payement.

When I was working as a consultant at Alten, in theory my gas could have been
reimbursed (based on distance travelled and car horsepower), but I never tried
since I used public transport during all my time there.

------
vageli
Isn't this at odds with the ruling in Amazon's favor about a similar issue?

[https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/courts_law/supreme-c...](https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/courts_law/supreme-
court-rules-amazon-doesnt-have-to-pay-for-after-hours-time-in-security-
lines/2014/12/09/05c67c0c-7fb9-11e4-81fd-8c4814dfa9d7_story.html)

~~~
malwarebytess
No, not necessarily. Pretty narrow ruling. It depends on the facts of the
cases.

~~~
brlewis
The facts look quite similar to me. I think the difference is law. The Amazon
case was based on U.S. law and the Apple case on California law. In the Amazon
case, the ruling said "These arguments are properly presented to the employer
at the bargaining table, see 29 U. S. C. §254(b)(1), not to a court in an FLSA
claim."

EDIT: There's a thread about this farther down:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22322608](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22322608)

------
megous
"A federal district court judge ruled in favor of Apple, deciding that workers
had to prove they not only were restrained from leaving but that there was no
way to avoid having personal items searched."

So workers that would not have a personal bag would avoid a search? You can
take away stuff from the store by hiding it in your clothes, I guess unless
you're working naked. How would anyone be able to avoid the search?

Am I missing something?

~~~
angry_octet
There are some really terrible Federal judges. And they can be there until
they die of old age.

------
dghughes
This reminds me of when I worked at a casino. I had to sign in my keys at the
end of the night. My supervisor had the lock box keys and they got those keys
from a Security officer. The supervisor was usually in the poker pit and
couldn't leave. Other supervisors would be standing around talking about
football and ignore me. I just stood there and waited making overtime while
talking to the girls at the bar. The manger was so inept she couldn't get her
staff to find five minutes to sign me out.

Some business seem to see your time at work as being your normal state of
being and your own personal time as "unwork". I go to work for eight hours for
the money trading my time for your money. The other 75% of my time is mine
it's not unworking it's normal personal life.

------
danans
Seems like Apple was probably selected for the class action suit due to being
a prominent and hugely wealthy company (just like Google and Amazon with
respective labor related activities targeting them). And that was a good
strategy, because here we are discussing it.

As a society with high and growing inequality the US is structured in a way
that incentivizes retail theft, so the frequency of this kind of theft isn't
going down anytime soon.

The question is who should bear the cost of it.

This has always been framed as an issue of immorality of retail workers, so
the cost has borne by them in the form of lost time/wages or maltreatment by
police or security services. This is of course a false and incomplete framing,
because it's arguably more immoral for a company to steal time / wages from
all workers in this case when the product theft is only committed by a few.

What is the loss due to theft of a smartphone vs. the cost to the worker who
will now double pay in lost wages and the time for extra child care caused by
the delay in leaving work?

Framed economically instead it's just the cost of doing business in our
society, just as with credit card fraud.

Going forward, it looks like it will be borne by the retailers and ultimately,
their customers, which is far better than it being borne by workers.

~~~
ganoushoreilly
This isn't new though. In the late 90's I worked for Best Buy and somewhere in
early 2k's I got a check for $1500 to compensate for hours lost due to these
kinds of loss prevention processes. I'm surprised it took this long for this
to happen.

------
usrusr
This is how you undermine employee loyalty to the point where they start
stealing.

~~~
sjwright
Exactly this. I don't live in North America so perhaps there's different
expectations there, but I'd be more worried about staff cohesion and loyalty
than of occasional thefts.

How should any employee take a company's concern about theft seriously when
the same company is so brazenly committing theft of an employee's time?

~~~
alkonaut
I have completely given up trying to understand the mentality that surrounds
work in the US (At least service work).

------
CivBase
The whole concept of searching your employees after their shift just pisses me
off.

Just install security cameras and track your inventory. If your inventory is
off, check the security footage. This isn't rocket science.

~~~
ajeet_dhaliwal
The morale destruction must be enormous, being treated like a potential
criminal at the end of each workday. Seems like a tech company should have a
tech solution to this.

------
tmpz22
Why can’t they just keep proper inventory and reduce their lost inventory
liability with basic tracking and analytics? If high value goods go missing
during a particular shift at a particular store THEN you increase security at
that one store or ideally track which employee took the goods and make an
example of them by taking them to civil court since the average Apple product
is much more then petty theft...

------
pier25
Is this common in the US? (retail workers being searched)

~~~
salehenrahman
I don't know about in the US, but in Canada, I used to work at Forever 21—a
California-based retail chain—and you are required to go through a pat-down
right before you leave the store.

You'd have to look for a manager, and ask them to escort you to the front of
the store, and have them pat you down.

~~~
selectodude
That’s surprising, if only because I’m not sure how you could steal more than
$10 worth of stuff without a full garbage bag.

Didn’t seem to help them. They filed for bankruptcy.

~~~
anonymfus
_> if only because I’m not sure how you could steal more than $10 worth of
stuff without a full garbage bag._

People who have an idea how to do it, please don't write it here, as it can
lead to worsening of the situation for store workers.

~~~
eru
Your regular honest worker is better off, when dishonest coworkers won't
steal.

~~~
anonymfus
I meant worsening of the situation for workers because of increase in security
buffonata as a probable reaction to such revelations.

------
johngalt
If being searched is a task required by your employer, I don't see how that's
any different than time spent doing any other task.

This also seems like a good way to align incentives. If time spent on security
is compensated time, then there is a baked-in need to make the process less
onerous.

------
sabujp
This is how trillion dollar companies earning billions per year treat their
employees. Disgusting. Why not tag devices that cannot leave the store using
the same tags retailers use to prevent shoplifting?

~~~
beambot
EAS tags are notoriously simple to bypass for insiders.

~~~
londons_explore
Apple could easily mark serial numbers of store devices and make sure they
can't work anywhere outside the range of store wifi.

~~~
RandallBrown
They would simply disable the tags before leaving, like they do for items that
customers have purchased.

------
rezgi
Really... Apple makes huge margins, and they can't afford to pay for the time
they require their employees to work?

Also, the fact that this is even possible is a very good example why the US
needs more unions. It obviously doesn't work with the current model where
employees (of any industry) gets screwed over by the corporate overlords. But
no, union BAD!! I don't see a better way to bring weight to the table and
force employers to do the right thing, they certainly won't do it of their own
accord.

~~~
pengstrom
Exectly. With Apples great resources comes great responsibility. They have no
excuse for not treating their employees with respect.

------
skywhopper
Good lord. Why fight this? This is the obvious right thing to do. If it
amounts to significant impact on costs, then they have failed to run their
store’s operations well. Sheesh.

~~~
t-writescode
Money

------
paulie_a
Good. The search is exclusively for the businesses benefit. The employee
should be compensated for their time wasted. If they come in at 8 they should
get paid from 8 on.

Otherwise it is simply theft from the employee

------
krustyburger
I really didn’t think Apple would ever get into search.

~~~
ackshually
made me smile

------
MoZeus
Why would Apple even waste their time arguing this? They're obviously wrong:
change the policy and move on

~~~
minikites
You don't get to be the richest company in the world by paying your workers
well.

~~~
eru
Google and Microsoft are doing pretty well.

~~~
minikites
Neither of them are the richest companies in the world.

~~~
eru
Exactly who is on top depends on how you define that.

Judging by eg Enterprise Value is a reasonable way.

But also, you need to specify what you mean by 'company': lots of companies
are actually made up of lots of partially or fully owned subsidiaries. There's
no monolithic Apple or Google.

Lots of the details of that structure depend on responses to tax incentives.

See [https://www.forbes.com/sites/alapshah/2018/08/02/apple-
hits-...](https://www.forbes.com/sites/alapshah/2018/08/02/apple-
hits-1-trillion-but-its-still-not-the-most-valuable-company-in-the-
world/#2c838ce02175) for some attempt.

Instead of looking at total value, you could also look at something like
profit per employee or revenue per employee. But that's also not quite so
clear cut.

------
mnm1
So will they be forced to pay backpay to all the employees Apple stole from up
to this point? It's unclear if retroactively enforced means backpay, but it
should.

~~~
londons_explore
Would it be pay at the hourly contracted rate, or pay to meet minimum wage
when the extra hours are considered?

~~~
mnm1
Why would it be anything but the hourly contracted rate agreed in the
employment contract? Anything else is a breach of contract just like not being
paid at all is a breach of contract (which is also illegal but unenforced).

What should happen is a penalty for the CEO. I'd like to see Cook spend a few
weeks in jail, incommunicado because I'm sure this was done at his direction.
The government will never do anything to hurt such a company's bottom line in
a significant way, however. If a regular person steals fifty cents worth of
merchandise from the Apple store all hell will rain down upon him, but if Cook
steals millions from his employees, he's a great CEO.

------
RcouF1uZ4gsC
Note this is in California. At the US, level, 5 years ago, the Supreme Court
ruled that Amazon did not have to pay its workers for the time spent waiting
for screening.

Excerpt from the NY Times article about that decision:

WASHINGTON — The Supreme Court on Tuesday ruled unanimously that a temp agency
was not required to pay workers at Amazon warehouses for the time they spent
waiting to go through a security screening at the end of the day. The workers
say the process, meant to prevent theft, can take as long as 25 minutes.

NY Times article: [https://www.nytimes.com/2014/12/10/business/supreme-court-
ru...](https://www.nytimes.com/2014/12/10/business/supreme-court-rules-
against-worker-pay-for-security-screenings.html)

Non-paywalled version of above article
[http://archive.is/Az21a](http://archive.is/Az21a)

EDIT: Added excerpt from the article about the US Supreme Court decision.

~~~
mzs
more context

>…The U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals, where the case is now pending, asked
the California Supreme Court to clarify whether state law requires
compensation.

…

>A federal district court judge ruled in favor of Apple, deciding that workers
had to prove they not only were restrained from leaving but that there was no
way to avoid having personal items searched.

>Apple said it could prohibit employees from bringing any bags or personal
Apple devices into its stores altogether but gave them that benefit. The
California Supreme Court said a ban on any personal items would be
“draconian.”

~~~
Wowfunhappy
> Apple said it could prohibit employees from bringing any bags or personal
> Apple devices into its stores altogether but gave them that benefit.

What if you have asthma and need to keep an inhaler? Or one of the numerous
other medical conditions that also necessitate keeping an item on hand.

~~~
SamReidHughes
The ADA obviously requires them to make accommodations.

~~~
Wowfunhappy
Yeah, so what I was wondering is, if you have asthma do you get paid for the
time you spend waiting to be searched?

~~~
SamReidHughes
They’re going to search your inhaler?

~~~
Wowfunhappy
You'll need to bring the inhaler in a bag of some kind, which Apple will want
to search.

~~~
SamReidHughes
You could put it in a pocket.

------
addicted
This is horrible. They weren’t working. They were just being effectively
imprisoned with the threat of losing their jobs.

They shouldn’t be paid for that.

/s

------
maxehmookau
Yes. Yes, they should. The fact that this went to court is outrageous.

------
olliej
Omg, I still can't believe that was in any doubt.

If you are required to be at work, then you should be paid for that time. Just
because you aren't "working" does change that the business is requiring you to
be there.

If nothing else this should push them to make leaving work not take 20- _45_
minutes.

WTF. How does anyone think it's acceptable to [funcitonally] detain people.

~~~
matz1
>How does anyone think it's acceptable to [funcitonally] detain people

From the business perspective, provided they can get a way with it, it is just
another business decision, namely reducing cost and increasing profit. I would
do the same.

~~~
eropple
Alternatively, you could treat people like people and give them an actual
measure of respect instead of stealing time and money from them.

But, frankly, literally every time without exception that I remember seeing
you post, it's been a variation on the theme of "of course they shouldn't be
decent, why should they, I shouldn't have to be decent either", so I'm going
to pass on being surprised.

~~~
matz1
>Alternatively, you could treat people like people and give them an actual
measure of respect instead of stealing time and money from them

Thats depends on what one value, if you think treat people like people is
important then yes you should do it but if one value profit then doing what
apple did make sense.

~~~
angry_octet
Would you be unhappy if someone stole money from your bank account? Because
you're condoning theft. It's not clever business practices, it's theft.

~~~
matz1
>Would you be unhappy if someone stole money from your bank account?

If I'm the one being stolen, of course but not if I'm the one who stole (again
provided I will not be in trouble).

Provided they won't get in trouble, how is it not a clever business practice?

~~~
eropple
Because we have obligations to each other because we live in a society?

Because it's fucking _wrong to do it_?

~~~
matz1
Not everyone is agree with that. If everyone did that we wouldn't need police.

------
sbarre
This also says they search their personal iPhones. What exactly are they
searching for that someone could steal?

Do they just mean checking serial# or something to make sure someone didn't
swap their phone for a new phone?

Or are they actually searching/examining the contents of the phone?

~~~
angry_octet
Just that is their iPhone and not a brand new one from the store.

~~~
smegger001
That sounds to me like Apple retail employees need to start blatantly using
Android phones.

------
ghostpepper
What exactly is meant by having their personal Apple devices searched?

Searching a backpack for stolen hardware seems somewhat reasonable (although
it doesn’t reflect well on their hiring standards) but what right does Apple,
champion of privacy, have to search through their employees devices?

~~~
avian
Note that it says "personal Apple devices", not smartphones or laptops in
general. I think what is probably meant is that they check whether someone for
example swapped their old iPhone with a new one from the shop's inventory
(maybe by checking serial number, etc.).

------
ljm
This is fair enough. You’re still on the clock if you need security to sign
you off to leave.

------
diebeforei485
Yeah, this ruling makes sense. They should be on the clock until they are
allowed to walk out of the store.

------
confidantlake
Never had any issues waiting at an apple store. I was thinking to myself while
reading this wow people's experience is way more negative than my own. But it
makes sense, if you have good but not extraordinary service you are unlikely
to leave a comment. Most comments will come from those having poor service.

Good ruling, pay the employees if you make them wait.

------
ubermonkey
I thought this kind of thing was settled law long ago. Good that court agrees.

------
dylan604
>The court’s decision is retroactive.

This seems like a pandora's box. If the employees are already off the clock to
endure this delay for the searches, how will they be able to show how much
time was lost in a way that would be worthy of a payment?

~~~
differentView
They can ballpark it. Round up if necessary.

------
sjwright
I wonder, do these security guards get searched at the end of _their_ shifts?

------
whalesalad
Seriously?!? When I worked at Apple Retail it took all of 10 seconds for the
security search. This was at one of the busiest stores in the nation and
during the booming period of the iPhone 3/4.

EDIT: Y'all are completely smokin me with these downvotes. I am not against
this decision, I am just surprised that the issue grew to be this severe.

~~~
danso
I'd wager to bet that Apple's inventory is much more diverse and smaller (in
physical size) compared to the iphone 3 days. I don't remember Apple having as
many SKUs as they do now that are expensive and highly-wanted and very small,
e.g. Apple Watch and Airpods.

~~~
whalesalad
Apple has always had a metric ton of accessories ... so I would posit their
SKU count is actually not that different than before. Technology is also
greatly improved -- runner is accessible via an iPhone/iPad and that is also
integrated with payments and whatnot. Previously it was a hodge podge of
Windows CE devices.

I would imagine store operations are vastly more efficient than they were when
I worked there -- so I am more surprised that this got worse rather than
better.

