Apple's Court Battle With 20,000 Ex-Employees

A court case against Apple (NasdaqGS: AAPL - news) by 20,000 disgruntled ex-employees has been granted class-action status.

The former staff members say the firm held back their wages and stopped them from taking rest breaks.

The lawsuit was originally filed in 2011 by four former Apple retail and corporate staff, who claim managers routinely made them work more than five hours without a break.

They were then withheld wages that were promised to them to make up for the extra hours worked, it is claimed.

Plaintiffs' counsel Tyler Belong said: "Very often, workers were not given meal breaks for seven or eight hours and sometimes not at all."

Rest breaks are mandated by Californian labour laws and the plaintiffs say that because they had to punch in and out of work there is evidence to back up their claims.

A California judge has given lawyers the right to represent a total of 20,000 employees who worked for Apple after December 16, 2007.

It is not the only legal battle on Apple's plate.

The company is currently trying to settle a long-running civil action over claims Steve Jobs organised non-compete agreements with other Silicon Valley firms.

It is claimed the move was an attempt to keep wages down.