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Apple Sued For Turning Workers Into Slaves
Posted by
CmdrTaco
on Thu Aug 07, 2008 09:21 AM
from the waiting-for-a-jon-ives-designed-prison dept.
from the waiting-for-a-jon-ives-designed-prison dept.
SwiftyNifty writes "Apple employees are putting together a class action lawsuit for not receiving overtime pay. A Lawsuit filed Monday in California seeks class action status alleging that Apple denied technical staffers required overtime pay and meal compensation in violation of state law.
Filed in the US District Court for Southern California, the complaint claims that many Apple employees are routinely subjected to working conditions resembling indentured servitude, or 'modern day slaves,' for lack of better words."
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[+]
News: What Tech Workers Need To Know About Overtime 418 comments
onehitwonder writes "The class-action lawsuit that current and former Apple employees have filed against the company raises questions about what kinds of workers are covered by the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) — and thus, what kinds of workers are eligible for overtime pay. Some tech workers are covered under it; some are not though perhaps they should be. The lawyer who got IBM workers a $65M settlement from Big Blue for violating labor laws explains why employers often deny tech workers overtime pay and the circumstances under which certain tech workers may or may not be covered under the FLSA. From the article: 'It's not uncommon for employers to err on the side of classifying employees as exempt [from the FLSA], says Sagafi... In fact, the dirty little secret among employers and HR departments is that classifying employees as exempt — even if it means breaking the law — is in their best interest[,] provided... that they don't get caught... "In a sense, they may see it as economically viable for them to skirt the law and wait to see if they get sued because the exposure is not that huge [if they don't get sued]," Sagafi says. "If they can settle [a complaint] for less than 100 percent of what they owe people [for overtime], they've gotten away with a good deal."'"
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who pays a cultist? (Score:5, Funny)
Re:who pays a cultist? (Score:5, Funny)
Parent
Re:who pays a cultist? (Score:5, Funny)
YVAN EHT NOIJ
Parent
News... (Score:5, Insightful)
You know for all the flak we give the traditional media, at least they don't have headlines like this.
Not properly dispensing overtime pay is not the same thing as slavery, and the disconnect between the inflammatory headline and TFA is appalling.
On a lighter note, the CAPTCHA for me is unionize.
Re:News... (Score:5, Insightful)
Yours is one of many posts saying the same thing (and getting +5 insightful).
Why are you guys focusing on bashing the headline instead on the actual problem, which is that highly skilled people are working over time for nothing?
This IS a serious problem because,
- It is so common in the industry that there aren't lots of alternatives.
- The more they work the more others (even in other countries) are forced to work.
- Quitting is not a serious option unless you are rich and work for sport.
Parent
Slaves, eh? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Slaves, eh? (Score:5, Insightful)
Damn right, they are 'Resources' not Slaves.
Parent
Jobs (Score:5, Funny)
My Wife's A Teacher (Score:5, Insightful)
She and her colleagues have "X" number of contract days for which they must report to work.
However of late, the practice has begun of additional "nonmandatory" meetings, training sessions, and general workdays. You know, "for the children." This has grown to the point where she is probably present "at work" during about 12 to 15 days of her summer vacation. None of this time is compensated in any way; in fact, with gasoline costs as they are, you may readily say SHE is paying for this privilege.
Oh, it's "not mandatory," but it is "expected" by the administrators, who like to boast to their peers about the amount of "donated time" they're getting out of their teachers. "Failure to cooperate" can lead to subtle retaliation.
My point is that this isn't "slavery" but it is d*mned inconsiderate. If you want to climb the "ladder of success," don't do it on the backs of your "underlings."
Is everyone a freakin slave these days? (Score:5, Insightful)
Good god it appears to be the phrase of the year "We are just modern slaves". Top of the shop of abuse of the term is Sepp "I'm a nutter" Blatter who in reference to someone who is paid about $300,000 A WEEK said that it was just like modern slavery [google.co.uk].
These people aren't slaves because.... THEY COULD QUIT. It might be tough, it might be hard, but either quit and get another job or work out a constructive way of fixing it.
Don't compare it to the physical ownership of another human being and the sort of destruction of human rights that entails.
IDE chain gang (Score:5, Funny)
Apple employees should just switch which pins are connected via the jumper. It's clearly labeled on the top of the drive.
Such Insensitivity (Score:5, Funny)
I take it these people didn't get the memo. Do these people not know that?
The Apple Employee (Score:5, Funny)
It Just Works.(TM)
pathetic (Score:5, Interesting)
Equating earning $100k and working in an air conditioned office longer than you expected with SLAVERY disparages the memories of those who were whipped to near death while working in fields, and paid nothing.
I think the court should order those workers to work on plantations without pay for a while, then reconsider their use of the word "slavery."
Delicious (Score:5, Funny)
"Coke Cola introduced a new, delicious Lime-twisted beverage today, creating a Holocaust of flavor formerly unknown to this world until today. The lines of people at convenience stores remind one of cattle awaiting an unknown fate, only these cattle were people, and the fate a tasty, carbonated beverage."
Just until the suite is resolved,, (Score:5, Informative)
Just wait until they win their suit..Apple will pay the court required payments.. then convert all those employee to an hourly status...at a base pay cut design to make it so that all the overtime is required to make it back to what they were getting in salary in the first place.
For the IBM employeesu in California that sued for the same thing.. the class won $56M and everyone in the class was reclassified as hourly at a 15% pay cut, because based on IBM's calculations that would keep the wage payments at the same level after the switch from salary to hourly. And oh by the way.. IBM applied the reclassification across all American employees in the same job category, but not the class action payments.
Welcome to Corporate America (Score:5, Insightful)
... where, unless you are upper management, you are getting the shaft. Being a developer, I particularly like how (at my company anyway) our sales staff pulls down Director level salary and obscene commissions on the gross (NOT net) product they push out the door ... even when it means a loss for the company.
I remember back years ago where there were a few movements to form programmers unions ... doomed to failure from the inception. Programmers don't need huge entrenched installations to do our work like, say, UAW workers do ... and since every cocky high school kid who has churned out "Hello World" in Visual Basic thinks they can do real development ... and the typical management position that developers are an easily replaced commodity.
I dunno. I'm just old and jaded. Always do the best work you are capable of doing, and if you feel you deserve better compensation when your company is either unwilling (don't see you as a valuable asset) or unable (poor decisions have left them so fubar that they can't) then it is time to move on. Possibly more important ... if you are unhappy doing what you are doing, forget the compensation and move ASAP.
Suing your own company for a perceived lack of compensation is the best way to build resentment and to nail the coffin shut on your future with that, or any other, company.
Slaves (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Queue the jokes, and something serious... (Score:5, Insightful)
Parent
Re:Queue the jokes, and something serious... (Score:5, Insightful)
That being said, state law typically trumps any/all contract law - if the contract signed was illegal, then you're not held to it.
I don't get paid for showing up to work per hour. I get paid to work and do a job.
We're in America - we're free to fail, and I think that people don't like that sometimes - they felt they are owed for simply trying. You're not. Hence the complaints about stupid stuff like this where people FEEL "trapped" when they're not in it as much as they think they are. Successful people don't whine about their circumstances - they go out and try to change them.
Parent
Re:No, *THESE* are slaves (Score:5, Insightful)
Honda, Toyota, and Subaru seem happy to build cars in the US.
Parent
Re:No, *THESE* are slaves (Score:5, Informative)
So how does this compare, to BMW for example, where their German workforce is also highly unionized? Have they essentially done the same thing as the U.S. automakers, essentially shipping jobs away from heavy regulations in favor of lighter ones?
A quick Google search http://www.google.com/search?source=ig&hl=en&rlz=&q=bmw+unionization+U.S.+plants [google.com] tells me that the U.S. plant is non-unionized but pays competitive wages. What this doesn't say is how their non-wage costs, benefits and retirement for example, compare with their unionized force in German and with the Big 3.
Parent
Re:No, *THESE* are slaves (Score:5, Funny)
Parent
Re:No, *THESE* are slaves (Score:5, Insightful)
The point you make is the exact point all corporations make in order to exploit cheap foreign labor. "Well, their lives sucked, so let us pay them peanuts, then they must be happy"
Also it is beyond my understanding that someone tells us that what is being done is good for them without seeing there, talking to anyone working there. Don't you think it is way too arrogant to "know" what is good for them?
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Re:the new neocon slashdot (Score:5, Funny)
I remember when slashdot was full of smart people with a liberal philosophy
I don't remember that. I remember a slashdot full of nerds... all the way down.
Parent