It should really depend on how long it takes. If it takes 10 minutes or less, I'd agree with the court. But if it's taking 30 minutes on a regular basis, and the security check is required, then they should be paid for it. Amazon needs to figure out how to process their employees quicker.
Personally I think it sucks.
If the boss is telling you what to do you are on the clock.
This sort of thing has long been a labor issue. At the mine, we were paid “from collar to collar”, that was from the time the cage (think elevator) left the surface until when it returned to the surface. The union persistently bargained for pay from the time you entered the change room to dress for work until after you showered and put on your civilian clothes. The union never got their way either by bargaining or by wage and hour complaints.
Wow... that’s a wonky ruling.
This ain’t the first ruling made by this Supreme Court that I think is crap. I can think of a couple that may rank right down there with Dred Scott.
The employees should quit if they feel that strongly about it. That’s one of the great things about America, you don’t have to work at a job that you don’t like. Pretty simple huh?
No thanks.
Whenever all nine agree on something they’re probably right. Ninth Circus screwing up again.
Well then can the workers simply bypass security without endangering their jobs? If they can't, then it's part of their duties. What a bizarre ruling.
Blame Congress:
“Held: The time that respondents spent waiting to undergo and undergoing security screenings is not compensable under the FLSA. Pp. 3–9.
(a) Congress passed the Portal-to-Portal Act to respond to an economic emergency created by the broad judicial interpretation given to the FLSA’s undefined terms “work” and “workweek.”...
...To begin with, the screenings were not the principal activities the employees were employed to perform—i.e.,the workers were employed not to undergo security screenings but to retrieve products from warehouse shelves and package them for shipment. Nor were they “integral and indispensable” to those activities.
This view is consistent with a 1951 Department of Labor opinion letter, which found noncompensable under the Portal-to-Portal Act both a preshift screening conducted for employee safety and a postshift search conducted to prevent employee theft.
The Ninth Circuit’s test, which focused on whether the particular activity was required by the employer rather than whether it was tied to the productive work that the employee was employed to perform, would sweep into “principal activities” the very activities that the Portal-to-Portal Act was designed to exclude from compensation. Finally, respondents’ claim that the screenings are compensable because Integrity Staffing could have reduced the time to a de minimis amount is properly presented at the bargaining table, not to a court in an FLSA claim....
...At issue here is the exemption for “activities which are preliminary to or postliminary to said principal activity or
activities.”...
...If the test could be satisfied merely by the fact that an employer required an activity, it would sweep into “principal activities” the very activities that the Portal-to-Portal Act was designed to address....”
http://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/14pdf/13-433_5h26.pdf
“Portal-to-Portal Act of 1947
An amendment to the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) (29 U.S.C. §§ 251 to 262). The Portal-to-Portal Act clarifies that certain activities are generally not compensable working time under the FLSA. In particular, the Portal-to-Portal Act excludes from mandatory compensation:
Traveling to or from the actual place where the employee performs his principal activities.
Time spent on incidental activities before or after the employee’s principal activities.”
http://us.practicallaw.com/6-508-0673
And they should be paid.
I was surprised the bleeding-heart liberals appointed by Obama went along with this. It shows where their hearts really are, I guess.
Nitwits
This is a correct interpretation. Being that security is a requirement to perform the task they are paid to do, NOT a direct task they are paid to do.
For example, if you are required to pass a physical examination, you would not necessarily be paid to sit in a physicians office.
Also, you are not paid for your time driving back and forth to work, even though you are required to work at a specific place.
Correct ruling.
What a bunch of whiners. "Waaaah, I hadda stand in line to punch my time clock and I didn't get paaaiiiddd for those two minutes! Waaaah!"
Not only are the Supremes wrongly legislating this issue from the bench imo, but the Supremes are usurping 10th Amendment-protective state legislative powers to do so.
Do you ever wonder why you have to work to open and snip off so many security measures in packaging, before you can open a packaged product?
Employee thefts at the manufacturing, shipping and retail stages are the primary reasons.
If only our government was subjected to the same scrutiny, a certain Democrat official would have been stopped before he was able to leave a supposedly secure facility with classified documents stuffed in his socks...