Court rules that Apple must pay employees for time spend in mandatory bag checks

Bloomberg Law reports that Apple violated California law when it failed to pay employees for time they spend waiting for mandatory bag and iPhone searches at the end of their shifts, the California Supreme Court ruled.

A 2013 lawsuit alleged that Apple should pay employees for the time it takes to do security bag checks. These checks are done at the end of shifts and were designed to insure that employees were not taking merchandise from the retail outlets. 

An email was sent to CEO Tim Cook in 2012 by a store worker, telling him that Apple managers “are required to treat ‘valued’ employees as criminals.” 

Apple won at the trial level in U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California, which said employees of the Cupertino, Calif., tech company chose to bring bags to work and thus subject themselves to the company’s search policy. On appeal, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit turned to the state court to interpret California law.