Apple sued for overworking employees
Tiny URL: http://tinyurl.com/5w6mkc
Apple faces legal action as David Walsh, an ex Apple employee, files a lawsuit in the US District court for Southern California. The complaint claims that Apple employees are routinely subject to working conditions resembling indentured servitude and that Apple denies technical staffers required overtime pay and meal compensation in violation of state law.
Lead plaintiff David Walsh was employed by Apple as a network engineer from 1995 until 2007. His complaint says he was often required to work more than 40 hours per week, miss meals, and spend his evenings and even entire weekends on call without any overtime pay or meal compensation. He was responsible for tech support calls that often came after 11 pm.
The lawsuit alleges that Apple intentionally misclassified Walsh and many other workers as management employees in order to avoid having to pay them overtime as required under California law for hourly workers. It seeks to include Apple retail stores’ staff as plaintiffs.
If the plaintiffs win this lawsuit, a judge or a jury could require Apple to substantially revise its compensation practices and also pay retroactive compensation to many of its present and former technical and retail store employees, which could run into millions of dollars.
