A federal judge in California has approved a $30.5 million settlement in a nearly decade-old lawsuit against Apple Inc., which fired 15,000 workers because they were not paid for the time they spent at security checkpoints after their shifts ended.
U.S. District Judge William Alsup in San Francisco approved the settlement of the 2013 class action lawsuit.
Prosecutors alleged that workers waited several minutes before exiting, sometimes longer, so that their bags could be searched before they were allowed to leave the stores where they worked.
In 2020, the California Supreme Court used the case to rule that state law requires employees to be paid for the time they spend going through mandatory security checks.
Walmart Inc. and Amazon.com.Inc are also among the large US employers facing similar lawsuits.
Amazon and the employment agency last year agreed to pay $8.7 million to 42,000 warehouse workers.
