“IT workers at Apple are subject to conditions resembling indentured servitude and, in violation of California state law, are denied required overtime pay and meal benefits, a lawsuit filed Monday against the computer maker alleges,” Paul McDougall reports for InformationWeek.
“David Walsh, who worked as a network engineer at Apple from 1995 until last year, was routinely forced to work more than 40 hours per week, missed meals, and often had to spend evenings and entire weekends on call without receiving an extra dollar of pay, according to the suit,” McDougall reports.
“Walsh’s attorneys contend that he, and other Apple IT workers, were purposefully misclassified as management by the company so it could avoid paying them overtime rates that California legally requires for nonmanagement personnel and also to avoid lawsuits,” McDougall reports.
“The attorneys are asking the judge to grant class status to all of Apple’s California IT workers, including those who are dispatched to perform support functions at Apple retail stores,” McDougall reports. “If successful, the suit could cost Apple big bucks. IBM was forced to shell out $65 million in 2006 to settle a similar case brought on behalf of 32,000 tech workers at the company.”
More in the full article here.
The question is hourly of salaried? If the guy is payed by the hour he has a case, if not he needs another job. Most IT people are not payed at an hourly rate, most IT people know this when they accept employment. Typical whiner, takes the job knowing the job requirements, and then tries to change the rules. If hes a temp. he has no rights.
Apple pays IT employees very, very well, beyond the standard industry average. I thought overtime for non-management employees only applied if the employee was payed under $50,000.00 per year. I know Apple IT Staff members all earn in the $75,000.00 to $250,000.00 range even newly hired staff start at about $75,000.00.
Should a highly compensated professional be expecting overtime pay in the first place?
At what level of professional pay structure should an employee be exempt from over time pay?
please Steve, may I have some more?
“You go to the interview where you have every opportunity to ask about the salary and what other benefits may be on offer.”
Except it doesn’t always work like that does it? Ever been lied to in an interview? I have.
One week into the job, I found out that it wasn’t like it said in the brochure. By that time, it’s too late. A mortgage, a family to look after and a crowded jobs market meant it took me an age to get out of the trap I fell into and the job I so desperately eventually left to take, set me back so far that it was almost like starting over again.
Even now, years later, my career is still feeling the effects of a crappy, weasel employer.
You guys type fast lol
“1) While your salaried employees may well put in overtime, a company cannot, as a condition of employment, require consistent hours in excess of 40.”
That’s not really up to the companies is it. If the Salaried person is slow and lazy and chatts to his friends on the phone all day and doesn’t get the tasks done within the 40 hours then they can be expected to stay behind and finish them. It’s what they’re paid for.
My wife is currently salaried and she is so efficient she leaves early every day and still gets the same money for less hours. Because her work is done.
Having a salaries, managers are supposed to stay behind or pop in if necessary to finish the work they haven’t finished. Either that or demote them and pay them a lesser basic wage and overtime.
Accepting a responsibility is why basic pay for salaried staff is better than basic wages.
And yes, it would make sense for Apple to provide a great free meal or buffet for salaried people working overtime. I agree with that point entirely.
The moral to the story is, if you’re quick and efficient at your job you incur less overtime.
That’s what I have always found with any salaried jobs I’ve had.
@ British Mac Head
I’m salaried and my company is very much smaller than apple revenue @ less than a percent of what apple makes ($130 million in revenue) and ALL OF I.T. gets paid overtime, so please don’t gives us the BS, apple is wrong here bottom line it doesn’t matter how long he was working there, a fact is still a fact! You can love working somewhere and still be under compensated, you think everyone jumps from job to job only to hate where they work but be paid more? this is a case of contentment but still doesn’t change the fact that Apple was cheap enough not to pay the people overtime, period.
PS= Without Apple I won’t be driving my nice BMW and have my nice condo in Brooklyn, NY but I believe when in calling a spade, a spade when I see it.
I don´t believe this. When I was working at Apple everything ie salary and benefits worked like clockwork. Everything was paid in time.
What’s so wrong with volunteering your time? Thats what they guy has been doing since he obvious never complained before. I do it all the time at work and never ask pay for it. A little here a little there cause stuff just needs to be done. I definitely agree with British Mac Head. Though some times you just need more people to do the job even if those people can’t be found and in thus case you work more hours.
OK Pierre, fair enough, your employer was an arsehole. But is you read what Demon put down about the Apple IT payscale I will tell you this. I run my own company and if I could earn what these IT personnel at Apple earn I would for 20 hours extra overtime a week for that sort of pay and happily say “don’t worry about the overtime Steve, you pay me enough already”.
Hell, it would be 20 hours less than I do already for a fair bit more cash I’ll tell you.
Form what he said and the dude from Finland Apple still deserves to win. $75k starting pay. That’s like £37,500.00 a year. Up to $quarter of a million. £125,000.00.
The argument for this guy is moot!!!
After 12 years he must have been at that higher payscale. What do you guys earn a year who are supporting this guy’s argument? I bet it’s less than that eh!!!
I certainly am and I am my own boss and I work haaaaard!!!
Hey! Where were these California lawyers when I was working 80-120 hours per week as a resident, including 36-40 hour shifts. Or, how about my first job out of residency working one weekend per month (8-10 hours on both Sat. and Sun.) without extra pay or compensatory days off? (No more of that in this post-Porn Wars era!)
Oh, that’s right – I knew what I was getting into when I signed the contract that stipulated these things.
Thanks Smyhre.
If you don’t have loyalty to your employer then you don’t belong. People who work hard and expect nothing extra and are good at their job get promoted. Better job, higher pay and more responsibility. For example my countryman Jon Ive, wasn’t he just another member of Apple’s industrial design team until SJ spotted his talent?
Apple are in business to make great products and make their mark. And in turn they should make great profits.
You don’t reward lazy people who have no talent!!! Apple is NOT a charity
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So THIS is why Apple has amassed over $22 billion in the bank.
And also, trade unions. They tend to ruin businesses. They ruined British Leyland and the coal industry here in the UK. Greedy sons of biaches!! Now we buy our coal from abroad because it’s cheaper and all the mines have closed. And we have a shittier economy and dependancy on other countries and our fuel bills are increasing.
Soon I won’t be able to afford the electricity to power my Mac and there goes my business…
If we still had our own coal industry and the unions didn’t intervene our lecky would be cheaper and the economy would be far healthier.
Trade unions can go suck a lemon!!!
I’m a bit surprised that MDN would link anything from InformationWeek, the most Apple-flamebait site. They cover/make up the most mean spirited and anti-Apple stories they can find in any given day (especially in the past few weeks) verging on ridiculous. In my view, they are pretty much most things opposite MDN, and not in a good way.
I consciously avoid donating them my clicks or time.
Oh yeah another thing I’m not salary I have to physically clock in and out when I am working so I know exactly when I’m volunteering time. If you are just there to make money then go sell illegal drugs you will make more money. If you enjoy the job it won’t matter exactly what you paid as long as it covers the basic expenses of life (that does not include a Ferrari by the way
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Having been , sort of, in both places, may I say this.
Salaried means that you earn a basic salary in lieu of hourly wages. It also means that sometimes you work over, AND SOMETIMES you goof off or take a day off.
Salaried is not a right for the company to make you always work 40 plus hours a week. Most state laws say so. If you get to come in late after a dental appt, or oil change etc and yet get your full paycheck, that compensates for the 48 hours the next week.
Been on both sides. Too many times companies actually think its OK to abuse employees cause they are free to leave. The issue is not abused employees but breaking state labor laws.
So, we will see if its disgrunted employee or cheap employer.
en
“Most IT people are not payed at an hourly rate, most IT people know this when they accept employment. Typical whiner, takes the job knowing the job requirements, and then tries to change the rules. If hes a temp. he has no rights.”
Indeed. No one ever joins IT for the hours. I certainly didn’t.
That said, dude should have known the score when he signed the contract.
Oh my. I was a surgical resident and worked 100hrs a week for 6 years without extra pay. Oh My, my university professors worked 65+ hours/ week with no extra pay. Oh my. My sister is a phD is in a research lab and gets a flat salary and works 50 to 75 hours per week. Those poor IT guys.
Ok, IBM settled for $65MM, with 1/2 probably going to the lawyers. So, IBM paid an approximately $1000 to each employee in their case. Wow…if you had to work overtime for years, that would come nowhere near what they should have been paid by IBM.
If you made $75k/year, $1000 would only cover 18 hours of overtime. I’m sure the average worker worked more overtime that this in a year…
@Macbones
My thoughts exactly.
Apple will settle this. I cringe every time Stevie thanks his troops after a product announcement. Everyone should have the opportunity to have a life. Do some laundry. Eat right. Sleep. Otherwise, they’re shortening their lifespan.
This is probably BS by a disgruntled employee and others too incompetent to succeed–so they get together to try to make a quick buck. If they knew the terms of employment, got $75K+ salaries, and stayed around year after year, they should get nothing, nada, zip. In fact, they should be forced to pay Apple’s legal bills for defending this!
It’s obvious that the MobileMe group at Apple didn’t have this overtime problem.
Jimbo von Winskinheimer,
“The reason that the employees have a case is that the US gov’t has laws regarding this”
If so, they aren’t enforced very well. In my experience, this type of thing is commonplace in the U.S. My last job was mandatory 50 hours per week for hourly and salaried. Weekends were voluntary, but it wasn’t a good idea to constantly refuse it.
Hell, years ago I had a job where you had to work 21 days straight to get 1 day off. The pay was barely above minimum wage. and this shop had a union! Now THAT was
something to bitch about!
I have no sympathy for this putz.
I’m sure that this guy got bored and pissed off and quit without having another job lined up. Now that he has burnt through all his retirement funds, he is looking for a quick buck by suing. Why else wait for 2 years after the end of employment to sue???
That being said, IF this is true, this should be an extremely embarrassing black mark on Apple’s employment practices. However, in the end, I’m guessing that Apple will settle to get rid of the sensationalism around the suit, not because they are “guilty”