Apple in November settled a long-running lawsuit over employee bag checks, with the Cupertino company agreeing to pay $29.9 million to employees who were subjected to off-the-clock bag searches, and now details about the settlement are available on Apple's website.
California employees first sued Apple in 2013, and in 2015, the case escalated into a class action lawsuit. Employees claimed that Apple subjected them to mandatory bag checks that were "embarrassing and demeaning," with those checks conducted after the end of a shift, causing employees to stay at work an extra 10 to 15 minutes.
Apple said that its bag searches ensured that employees were not hiding stolen electronics in their personal belongings. Apple claimed that employees who did not want to be subjected to bag searches could simply avoid bringing a bag to work, but this argument ultimately did not work for Apple and in 2020, the U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals said that Apple needed to pay the employees for the time they had spent in bag searches.
Apple and lawyers for the Apple employees in California reached a settlement last year and in November, asked a judge to approve it. Apple has agreed to pay nearly $30 million, and the more than 14,000 workers involved in the lawsuit will receive payments based on the individual shifts worked. Current and former employees will be receiving emails and letters from Apple with specific information about their potential payment amount.
Details about the Apple Bag Check Class Action Settlement can be found on Apple's legal website, with documents available for California employees subjected to bag checks between July 25, 2009 and August 10, 2015.
The bag search policy has been long discontinued and Apple has not conducted bag searches since 2015. The Final Approval Hearing for the settlement will take place on July 7, 2022.
