Apple Two Apple store employees are suing the company in a class action lawsuit that alleges they were subjected to so many frequent bag searches for security reasons that they lost up to $1,500 in unpaid overtime every year.

Amanda Freklin and Dean Pelle claim that the policy — which requires Apple store workers to be searched when they leave the premises on lunch breaks or at the end of the day — cost them 5 to 10 minutes of waiting every day. Over a year, that adds up to as much as $1,500 in unpaid Apple time, given that the employees earned $18.75 an hour.

The bag searches are conducted to prevent employees from walking out the door with Apples expensive merchandise. They are conducted "off-the-clock," the pair claim, and thus represent unpaid forced overtime work.

Freklin worked at the Century City store near Los Angeles; Pelle worked at the Lennox Mall store in Atlanta and in the West 14th St. store in New York, among others.

As the policy was company-wide, and as Apple employs about 30,000 workers in stores, the total potential liability could be in the ballpark of $45 million.

The suit was filed a couple of days ago and Apple has yet to respond. The company did not return a message from GigaOm, where we first heard of the suit.