The previously unread email has emerged as part of a lawsuit against Apple dating from 2013, according to CNN Money. Employees claimed that the company should be paying them for time spent waiting for Apple Store managers to check their bags for stolen devices as they left work.
The email was sent to Tim Cook on April 2nd 2012 from an unnamed employee. It has the telling subject line of “Fearless Feedback from Apple Retail Specialist” and states that the bag check policies are “both insulting and demeaning to Apple employees”.
Apple employees are apparently issued cards at the start of their shifts that detail the serial numbers of the Apple devices they own. Managers then ask for their Apple products and accompanying cards when they leave work before performing a bag check in front of “gawking customers.”
CNN reports that Cook forwarded the email to the Apple executives responsible for retail and HR and asked them “Is this true?” HR chief Denise Young Smith then contacted Apple’s strategies head Carol Monkowski to suggest the company should change its policy, proposing a suspension of the bag checks for three to six months followed by analysis of whether any more products had been stolen from stores.
Another employee’s email to Cook, sent over a year later in January 2013, says bluntly “Apple treats employees as criminals”, noting that the emergency exit in Apple’s Beijing Sidan Joy City store is blocked by displays of the company’s products.
It is unknown whether Apple ever changed its policy. According to CNN, an Apple spokeswoman did not respond to a request for comment and the company is still performing bag checks.
