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Apple store workers should be paid for time waiting to be searched, court rules

latimes.com

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Re: Apple store workers should be paid for time waiting to be searched, court rules

#171

Post by eru »

megablast wrote: post #131
8ytecoder wrote: post #81

As a thought experiment, what if companies are made to pay for commute time? How would that change the labour market? Would they hire local? Provide better transportation? Work with cities to reduce congestion? Encourage more remote work? Decide it's too expensive to hire workers and cut hours? Work towards more inclusive housing?

That is way unfair to the company, when you will have certain people who are 'happy' to travel 1.5 hours each way. This seems insane to me, but there are plenty of people who do this and see no issue at all. How would a company hire local anyway, by rejecting candidates who live to far away? What if they promise to move, but don't end up doing it? > Work with cities to reduce congestion? The only real working way to…

> The only real working way to do that is to ask them to introduce a congestion charge, which I am all for.

Works really well where it was pioneered (in Singapore) and also seems to do an OK job in London.

I suspect the Brits ain't as ruthless in applying orthodox economics in general, so they don't solve their problems nearly as well including their congestion problems.

Re: Apple store workers should be paid for time waiting to be searched, court rules

#172

Post by ClumsyPilot »

catalogia wrote: post #95
angry_octet wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The whole notion of employing off duty police as security is antithetical to the proper administration of justice and highlights systematic malaise. As well as the fear of robbery for such a low value and traceable item. Edit because I can't reply: Just off duty police. Police have significant powers, even off duty. In addition, if you pay them well they might do favors for you when on duty. Like looking for someone…

Do you oppose security guards in general, or only off-duty police officers working as security guards? I ask because as far as I can tell the practical alternative is to hire some guy who flunked out of the police academy and became a security guard instead, which seems... worse. Personally I navigate life without hiring any security guards. But I recognize that some people and/or circumstances might have legitimate…

I think the beef is with the idea that police have a trusted role in society, that is incompatible with being "goons for hire"

Re: Apple store workers should be paid for time waiting to be searched, court rules

#174

Post by skinnymuch »

antris wrote: post #142
pmiller2 wrote: post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wouldn’t call $50k a “low value” item. What item does the average person own that’s worth $50k besides a house or a car?

Watches, jewellery etc. Low value is relative. $50k is a lot to many people, but compared to human life, $50k isn't worth the risk.

Average person though, no? Im not sure even half the people in the 97th percentile having one watch or piece of jewelry worth $50K.

Re: Apple store workers should be paid for time waiting to be searched, court rules

#175

Post by detaro »

angry_octet wrote: post #86
TheSpiceIsLife wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you’re going to spend $50,000 on a computer, you can probably hire two security guards / off duty cops for an hour each at $250 an hour?

The whole notion of employing off duty police as security is antithetical to the proper administration of justice and highlights systematic malaise. As well as the fear of robbery for such a low value and traceable item. Edit because I can't reply: Just off duty police. Police have significant powers, even off duty. In addition, if you pay them well they might do favors for you when on duty. Like looking for someone…

click the timestamp of a comment to always reply

Re: Apple store workers should be paid for time waiting to be searched, court rules

#176

Post by skinnymuch »

warent wrote: post #124
im3w1l wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A maxed out computer is a perishable good - it's not going to be maxed out for long - and when it isn't the price falls rapidly. Did you get compensated for one month's depreciation?

The fact that there seems to have been no compensation is evidence to me that this was an intentional scam by the employee and they're doing what they can not to call attention to it. In my experience Apple is extremely generous with compensating for errors like this. For example, when I sent my MBP 2016 in for a keyboard repair, they decided to take that opportunity to upgrade the SSD from 256GB to 1TB. This is just…

The upgrading stuff in computer when it’s sent in is not uncommon though.

Re: Apple store workers should be paid for time waiting to be searched, court rules

#177

Post by eru »

8ytecoder wrote: post #81

As a thought experiment, what if companies are made to pay for commute time? How would that change the labour market? Would they hire local? Provide better transportation? Work with cities to reduce congestion? Encourage more remote work? Decide it's too expensive to hire workers and cut hours? Work towards more inclusive housing?

It would mostly lead to distortions between workers with different commutes. The overall average compensation would change much, but you'd change the distribution between workers.

Germany has a system a bit like what you are describing, only that it's the government giving you tax rebates for long commutes. It's not a good idea.

Ponder the opposite: why not subsidize short commutes instead and give people assistance to pay the higher rent closer to the place of work? That would be much greener, too.

Just to be clear, that would be silly as well. Let workers and employers negotiate what they want to compensate and how much.

Re: Apple store workers should be paid for time waiting to be searched, court rules

#178

Post by anamexis »

eru wrote: post #166
cletus wrote: post #2

Good. If the company makes you do something, it’s work.

It's a bit more transparent, but won't make much of a difference to the bottom line in the long run: The actual work done won't change from the relabeling, and Apple can adjust the hourly wages to get roughly to the same level of total compensation as before. (Modulo boundary effects from America's love affair with minimum wage laws, should they kick in.)

I doubt they’ll adjust the wages, if only because of the bad PR that would result.

Re: Apple store workers should be paid for time waiting to be searched, court rules

#179

Post by eru »

claudeganon wrote: post #98
8ytecoder wrote: post #81

As a thought experiment, what if companies are made to pay for commute time? How would that change the labour market? Would they hire local? Provide better transportation? Work with cities to reduce congestion? Encourage more remote work? Decide it's too expensive to hire workers and cut hours? Work towards more inclusive housing?

The privatization of all kinds of costs onto labor by Capital is actually a well-analyzed subject: https://www.versobooks.com/blogs/3555-mapping-social-reprodu...

Labour's share of GDP has been reasonably stable over the centuries.

Re: Apple store workers should be paid for time waiting to be searched, court rules

#180

Post by dawnerd »

topkai22 wrote: post #35
danso wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Really? (this is more of a genuine huh than a rhetorical huh) I guess I have relatively low expectations as a customer, but my most recent experience was picking up a laptop fixed up by AppleCare and I had to wait about 5 minutes for people ahead of me, but an employee found a place for me to sit and wait, and directed the relevant laptop-service employee to me when he was available. It seemed like a reasonable in-st…

I was asked to wait 45 minutes to pick up a bought and paid for phone. I left and came back later and found a more reasonable sales person, but still ended up waiting about 10 minutes. Then there was the time I made a service appointment, showed up slightly before my appointment, and waited 35 minutes for a “genius” to look at my phone. I don’t know if it’s just my local store, but I avoid Apple stores as much as I c…

Same experiences here. Ever since they went to the kind of free-for-all approach it's not been a good experience going to a store. I miss the days too when they actually had a checkout counter. Way easier than trying to flag someone down.
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