Apple has begun to send checks to Apple Store employees who were part of a lawsuit based relating to bag checks that were carried out off the clock.
The lawsuit involved almost 15,000 employees in California who were forced to have their bags checked out of hours, so they weren't paid for their time.
Bad bag checks
The bag searches were carried out between July 25, 2009, and August 10, 2015, with Apple saying that they were necessary to ensure that no employee was stealing items from Apple Stores. It also said that anyone who didn't want to have their bag searched shouldn't take one to work, a suggestion that was simply not viable for plenty of people and for all kinds of reasons.
That was also Apple's claim when taken to court over the unpaid time, but it didn't work. Apple was later ordered to pay the employees for the time that they lost during the bag searches — sometimes it wasn't just the time of the actual search that was lost because they had to wait their turn, too.
The result of the lawsuit was a $30.5 million settlement, with Apple Store employees now reporting that they have begun to receive their share.
damn i thought apple would send me a check for like $10 with their bag check settlement, but i got almost $1k 😂 we didn’t even do bag checks lmaoOctober 20, 2022
It isn't immediately clear how Apple worked out who to pay and how much, however. Some people have already taken to Twitter to confirm that they have received as much as almost $1,000 despite having not been subject to bag checks while working for Apple. Apple's bag checking is not a company wide policy, and stores have some discretion over whether they carry out the checks.
Others have similar stories, reports MacRumors, with some saying that they purposefully left their bags in their cars to avoid being subjected to the searches — yet they still received a payout.
What Apple Store employees do with their money is up to them, but Apple will no doubt hope that they treat themselves to a shiny new iPhone 14 or a similar product from their store. After all, the best iPhone is a free iPhone.
