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Apple faces off against 20,000 employees in class action lawsuit over labor code violations

A group of corporate and retail employees has received class action status for a lawsuit against Apple in which the plaintiffs argue that the company violated the California labor code by not offering “timely meal breaks, timely rest breaks, and timely final paychecks,” per a report from TechCrunch.

The suit was originally filed in December 2011, but was today expanded to cover around 20,000 current and former Apple employees in California. The employees named in the suit have varying reasons for joining forces against Apple, but all accusations boil down to Apple having violated several points of the state’s labor laws.

Apple has previously faced lawsuits from its employees over unpaid time spent standing in line for security checks after clocking out, as well as over deals made with competitors to prevent engineers at one company from taking a more lucrative job at another, though not every past case has been allowed to expand to class action status.

The full lawsuit is embedded below.

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Comments

  1. TechSHIZZLE.com - 10 years ago

    Maybe these “employees” should work at the Microsoft stores: there’s plenty of time for “meal breaks”, “rest breaks”, but good luck with the final checks-there may not be any money left.

    • Arthur Dent - 10 years ago

      Apple is not above the Law, even if they are the coolest brand to have ever existed – all the more reason to do it properly. slavery isn’t justified simply because the enslaver dresses well & is popular…I’ve work for Apple Enterprise Partners in the last 20 years, & none of them mass around when it comes to paying their staff or respecting labour laws – why should it be any different for those employees working directly for Apple….

  2. Howie Isaacks - 10 years ago

    Whiners! Meal breaks? Really? What a bunch candy ass losers!

    • Michael Pichu - 10 years ago

      Whiners? It’s the law.

      • Howie Isaacks - 10 years ago

        Yes. Whiners. I worked at an Apple store for over four years, and many times, I didn’t get my breaks on time, and sometimes, I didn’t take them at all. Big deal! Get over it and move on. It’s not worth letting a bunch of bottom feeding lawyers get rich.

    • Yeah but its that way of thinking that continues to let companies walk all over their employees.

      • Howie Isaacks - 10 years ago

        Apple doesn’t “walk all over their employees”. I know. I worked there, and I have friends who still work there. Unless you worked there, and witnessed it first hand, you don’t know what you’re talking about.

      • jerryfromcan - 10 years ago

        So the folks that DID work there are speaking… Not on an internet board but through their lawyers. I think I’ll believe their version over someone who claims to have worked there for now.

  3. herb02135go - 10 years ago

    Between this and the dirty laundry aired during the Samsung lawsuit Apple ain’t looking so polished.

  4. myforwik - 10 years ago

    Seems like a VERY weak case. Firstly the “untimely” pay upon finishing up… The employees seem to expect them to get their pay the very day they finish (maybe this is law?) – they are complaining that it took a few days (in one case just two days!) and the few other cases a week or so…. seriously suing over this? Most people have to wait weeks or months to get paid.

    The next claim seems to be a money grab. Basically it seems to me that by law the employees are meant to get 1 bonus hour of pay if they miss their meal/rest break. The claim is that apple pressured them or made them take their breaks late, sometimes, maybe, or not at all possibly sometimes. Reading between the lines, this means they are essentially trying to sue for 1 hour of pay for every day they worked at apple. A tidy sum will payable for the guy who worked there for 8 years… also he doesn’t seem to have complained until 5 years after he quit!