Dive Brief:
- A jury found Apple liable for not providing workers with meal and rest breaks as required under California law, Lawandsettlement.com reports. The tech company owes employees $2 million in settlement costs.
- Apple employees in a San Diego retail store filed a lawsuit in 2011, claiming that they routinely worked more than five hours straight without a meal break, a violation of state law. The workers insisted that they didn’t give up their right to a meal or rest break. Their complaint became a class-action suit, which includes workers affected since 2007.
- The plaintiffs also accused Apple of not paying terminated workers their final wages within a reasonable time and forbidding workers from talking about working conditions.
Dive Insight:
Employers need to review their state laws before drafting their own policies, and also before educating managers on how much policies should be managed to avoid situations like these.
On the federal level, the Fair Labor Standards Act clearly specifies how employers can avoid violating workers’ rights to meal and rest breaks. But as of late, the National Labor Relations Board has been particularly active and would find the retail store’s gag rule on discussions about working conditions a violation of workers’ right to assemble and discuss working conditions.