Apple employees file suit over alleged FLSA violations

Virtual at-home call center Apple employees recently filed a class action time and attendance lawsuit against the company, alleging it deliberately misclassified them as independent contractors in order to save money.

"By engaging in this scheme, the employers are trying to avoid laws involving payroll taxes, minimum wage, overtime pay and workers' compensation insurance - all in an effort to gain an unfair advantage on the competition," said Norman Blumenthal, managing partner of Blumenthal, Nordrehaug & Bhowmik, the firm that filed the suit.

By allegedly misclassifying the workers as independent contractors, Apple avoided paying them for overtime employee attendance in accordance with Fair Labor Standards Act provisions. Designating employees as independent contractors also allows companies to circumvent requirements pertaining to their share of payments for social security, income taxes, Medicare, unemployment insurance, workers' compensation and other business expenses.

This isn't the first overtime lawsuit that Apple has faced. In 2009, a former employee sued the company for allegedly making its staffers work long hours without overtime compensation.