A class-action lawsuit has been filed against Apple by an ex-employee. The former employee claims the company broke New York employment laws by paying bi-weekly rather than weekly.
Filed Monday, the class action complaint filed by plaintiff Raven Ramos on behalf of all Apple employees in the state of New York, “that engage or have engaged in manual work in the course of their employment” alleges that Apple has continuously violated labor laws in the state.
The Apple Employee Lawsuit and New York Labor Laws
New York laws dictate that manual workers receive weekly pay. The only way to avoid this is to receive express authorization from the New York State Department of Labor Commissioner to allow payments to occur on a semi-monthly basis.
The belief is that Apple did not receive said authorization, and that the company paid wages biweekly. The suit argues that the store staff receives protection by the manual labor law, and therefor Apple is breaking it by not paying the employees weekly.
A resident of Port Chester, Ramos was an employee for Apple between the months of October 2010 and January 2018. She was working at the Fifth Avenue Apple Store. It was during this period that Apple did not pay weekly wages, rather paying biweekly like many other retail establishments.
Ramos is claiming injury in the failure to pay wages due to owed money temporarily deprived to her. She also states that she lost the “time value” of her money. The suit is claiming to cover at least 100 members. The total claims from individual members is in excess of $5 million.
The claim laid out by the class is seeking to regain several things from Apple. The claim proposes the class should receive entitlement to recover untimely paid wages as well as reasonable attorney’s fees and pre- and post- court costs.
Apple is no stranger to lawsuits. While this one is of particular interest as it debates the word “labor,” it will be interesting to see how this process might affect other companies.