Waiting to go through a security screening and then being screened is not compensable time under federal wage-hour law, the U.S. Supreme Court decided in a case issued today (December 9). But don’t expect California courts to interpret California law in the same way.
In an opinion by Justice Clarence Thomas in Integrity Staffing Solutions, Inc. v. Busk, the Court unanimously ruled that when hourly employees waited for and then went through an antitheft security screen at Amazon.com warehouses, they were engaged in “noncompensable postliminary activities” under the federal Portal-to Portal Act because the screenings “were not the ‘principal activity or activities which [the] employee is employed to perform.’” The ruling reversed a decision by the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals.
Continue Reading Security Screening Time Need Not Be Paid, SCOTUS Rules – Expect California Law to Differ