Supreme Court Liberals rule with conservatives in favor of Amazon wage theft

[ND-Dem]

Opinion analysis: No overtime pay for after-work security check

Workers who are required to stay after their normal hours on the job to undergo a security screening are not entitled to overtime pay while they wait for that process and then go through it, the Supreme Court ruled unanimously on Tuesday.

The decision in Integrity Staffing Solutions, Inc. (Amazon's pet temp agency) v. Busk overturned the one federal appeals court that had ruled in favor of workers in that scenario — an increasingly common practice in the workplace.

The overtime pay case involved workers at two warehouses in Nevada, which served as storage and order-filling facilities for the online retail giant Amazon.com. Two of Integrity’s hourly workers sued the company after it began requiring all workers to go through screening before they left the premises, a policy designed to deter theft of goods.

The two workers, who filed a class-action lawsuit, contended that they had to wait up to twenty-five minutes to be searched, at which point they then had to remove their wallets, keys, and belts and pass through a metal detector. Their lawyers argued that because this procedure was a mandatory part of their job, imposed by their employer, they were entitled to be paid overtime for the additional time.

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit ruled that Integrity had to pay overtime for the screening process, concluding that this after-work review was a job requirement and was for the company’s benefit.

Reversing that result, and reaching the same conclusion reached by all other federal appeals courts that had considered the issue, the Supreme Court declared that such screening procedures were not an “integral” part of the job. Integrity’s staff at the warehouses, the Court said in an opinion by Justice Clarence Thomas, were hired to take products off the shelves and package them for shipment to Amazon’s customers, not to go through security screenings.

The Court also found that Integrity could have eliminated the screenings without affecting the workers’ ability to complete their normal tasks. The decision commented that the Ninth Circuit was wrong in focusing on whether the employer had required the extra activity at the end of the workday. If that were the test, Justice Thomas wrote, it would sweep into the realm of paid employment the very kind of activities that Congress had enacted the Portal-to-Portal Act, passed in 1947 to narrow the scope of wage and hour rights under the Fair Labor Standards Act, to address.

Justice Sonia Sotomayor, joined by Justice Elena Kagan, wrote a brief concurring opinion, elaborating on their understanding of the standards the Thomas opinion had used.

http://www.scotusblog.com/2014/12/no-overtime-pay-for-after-work-security-check/


What a travesty. The company REQUIRES you to go through the screenings to keep your job. It's irrelevant that they "could" eliminate the screenings, or that the "normal" job consists of moving merchandise. The company requires its workers to be searched before they can leave the workplace, and the searches steal the workers' time for the benefit of the employer.

[delrem]

1. A very very unfair and anti-worker ruling. nt

[NaturalHigh]

2. "Liberals rule with conservatives"...

Funny how that often works when money is concerned.

[ND-Dem]

3. money & war. same thing, really.

[ChosenUnWisely]

6. Shows you who they are REALLY Working for

It also proves that Pres Obama's appointment's are not all that liberal or progressive either but neither is Obama.

[Scuba]

8. +1

[woo me with science]

9. +1

"But...but....but....SUPREME COURT!!!!11!!1!" What a cruel joke.

Third Way = Predators

[Vattel]

59. I don't think you should blame SCOTUS here.

The workers' suit appealed to the Fair Labor Standards Act (FSLA) and, unfortunately, that act didn't require the employer to compensate the workers for the time required for the security screening. The problem here is that Congress needs to either amend FLSA or produce a new statute to better protect workers from what is obviously unfair treatment. The employer should be ashamed of themselves for depriving their employees of precious time without compensation. But greed will do that to people, and so we need laws to protect workers. Unfortunately, republicans and third way dems make such laws difficult to pass.

[NBachers]

4. Sounds like Integrity's lawyers wrote the decision and Thomas Pig & Corp. rubber-stamped it.

[Spitfire of ATJ]

5. So they can take from you to see if you take from them.

[blkmusclmachine]

7. Nothing even remotely "liberal" about this bad ruling.

[woo me with science]

10. kick

[MohRokTah]

11. IT was a unanimous ruling

That means the workers had no fucking case. The policy of going through security applies to all, employees, non-employees, family of employees, whatever. That's why they won.

But whine away.

[ND-Dem]

12. lol. "your true colors..."

[MohRokTah]

13. LOL, a unanimous SCOTUS decision leaves no room for controversy.

Seriously, you have no understanding how the law works.

[ND-Dem]

14. 10 Supreme Court Rulings—Before Hobby Lobby—That Turned Corporations Into People

Last week's Hobby Lobby ruling charted new legal territory by granting corporations the same religious rights as real people. The rationale behind the decision—that expanding constitutional rights to businesses is necessary to "protect the rights of people associated with the corporation"—is far from novel. A line of Supreme Court rulings stretching back 200 years has blurred the distinction between flesh-and-blood citizens and the businesses they own, laying the groundwork for Hobby Lobby and the equally contentious Citizens United ruling. ..

http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2014/07/how-supreme-court-turned-corporations-people-200-year-saga


Buck v. Bell, 274 U.S. 200 (1927), is a decision of the United States Supreme Court, written by Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr., in which the Court ruled that a state statute permitting compulsory sterilization of the unfit, including the intellectually disabled, "for the protection and health of the state" did not violate the Due Process clause of the Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution. The decision was largely seen as an endorsement of negative eugenics—the attempt to improve the human race by eliminating "defectives" from the gene pool.

The Supreme Court has never expressly overruled Buck v. Bell....The effect of Buck v. Bell was to legitimize eugenic sterilization laws in the United States as a whole. While many states already had sterilization laws on their books, their use was erratic and effects practically non-existent in every state except for California. After Buck v. Bell, dozens of states added new sterilization statutes...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buck_v._Bell

[MohRokTah]

15. Neither case you are citing was unanimous.

Looking to the dissents a path to overturning the ruling can be found.

The only way the workers will be able to prove the security checks are a requirement for employment and a part of the job they do will be to present evidence of employees being subjected to it while non-employees are not.

So, take a cell phone, with a camera, and wait. The first time they get a non-employee being ushered around the security line while the employees are going through it, they'll have case. They can even set up the employer by trying to embed a journalist doing a story on the efficiency of the operation and insure the tour goes late enough to have the journalist leave at a shift change.

IF the journalist still has to go through the security, there is no case.

Here's an example of why they ruled the way they ruled. Airports require security screening for all employees of all employers located at the boarding terminal areas. This is a facility requirement, not an employer requirement and it is not a part of the job the employees perform.

So McDonald's employees who come into the airport to work are not due pay for the time they spend going through security just to get to their job.

There's how your ruling was made in this case.

[ND-Dem]

17. "10 supreme court rulings..." Are non-employees even allowed into Amazon warehouses? I doubt it.

citizens united:

Majority

1. Kennedy, joined by 2. Roberts, 3. Scalia, 4. Alito; 5. Thomas (all but Part IV); 6. Stevens, 7. Ginsburg, 8. Breyer, 9. Sotomayor (only as to Part IV)

[MohRokTah]

18. You cited two cases in your post, and only two.

This is a facility requirement, not an employer requirement. The warehouse is not the employer and has a security requirement. The employer is Integrity Staffing Solutions, Inc. and does not own the warehouse or the merchandise housed in the warehouse.

Also, Amazon DOES NOT own the warehouse in this case. Amazon is a customer of that warehouse.

[TheKentuckian]

28. So, if you compartmentalize and outsource then it is okay to screw workers out of their time?

Is there no point that this becomes unreasonable in your mind? An hour a day? Two hours a day? 5 hours a day? Anything at all or will you defend taking people's time without compensation to any extreme as long as the employer is crafty enough?

Why don't we just return to slavery except that the chattel can quit and take their chances or are you saying that is what the nature of employment is?

[MohRokTah]

31. These are NOT Amazon workers.

Get a fucking clue.

Amazon was not a party to the lawsuit.

[TheKentuckian]

50. You get a clue, I know plenty about shelling around, vendor arrangements, and contracting.

I've worked it all, jack. All you are saying is if you set it up in a compartmentalized fashion, contract, and use vendors you can steal a worker's life away. That no amount of time is too much as long as you do it just so.

You think this isn't Amazon's ballgame? Then you know absolutely nothing. The "client" calls the big picture shots otherwise they pull their "contract" and find a more fitting "vendor" to work with and often it goes deeper than that. My last "client" maintained a raw data feed and kept a VP on site.

I've been a contractor.

I've worked for vendors.

I've worked for "clients".

I've worked for subsidiaries.

I've worked for a same service re-seller with territorial integrity.

I've worked under government contract.

I've worked in a company that split into independent but necessarily cooperative units.

I think I've seen how these things go down in all kinds of forms up close and personal and I think you are protecting pocket, ideology, or both and "know" little beyond that which is why we see the angry blustering.

[MohRokTah]

51. You seriously don't know shit if you do not understand different legal corporations...

and the various liabilities and regulations regarding such contractual agreements.

Working for various organizations is says nothign for your knowledge about how these contractual agreements work.

[TheKentuckian]

53. "How they work" and "How they should work" are not the same thing and

at this level we are talking about the interpretation of basic principle which then acts as the framework laws operate in.

No question a maze of shells has been created to partition the top dogs from liability and responsibilities what I am saying is that it is all a travesty, a sham, a mockery YES a first magnitude travishamockery purposely devised to arrive at exactly such an outcome while being able to point the finger and cut ties when the shit hits the fan.

Cut costs and evade liability is the name of the game. Huff and puff all you want, it is all static.

[MohRokTah]

55. No, at this level we are talking about long standing tort precedence.

So you don't know shit.

[Yo_Mama]

34. But this has NOTHING TO DO with this case.

Read the opinion so your comments can at least be relevant.

[Autumn]

16. When there is a buck to be made. I keep hearing how important supreme court picks are.

the game is rigged.

[sunnystarr]

19. Again ... now a THIRD time of Amazon bashing

in a span of 4 hours. And Amazon isn't even part of the law suit. Integrity Staffing solutions is NOT Amazon, it's a temp agency Amazon uses. PLUS they did nothing wrong - which is what the SCOTUS determined.

The Fair Labor Standard Act which governs overtime ties the overtime to only the wages earned by an employee in compensable activities. I remember working at a seasonal job in a department store over 30 years ago and after we clocked out and went to leave there was a security search at the door. Time spent waiting for the search is a non-compensable activity. So it's just the cost of doing business. You have to stand and wait for the search and not get paid but you do get paid for not working when it's slow and you're just standing around on a job. The legal tests and precedents support both.

[ND-Dem]

21. ooh. "amazon-bashing". that sounds awful.

If you're required to be on-site and can't leave, you're working.

"You do get paid for not working when it's slow and you're just standing around..."

lol. I've never seen a department store job where employees were allowed to 'just stand around,' or where they were paid, rather than being sent home, for doing so.

But by all means, let us have no "amazon-bashing"

[nichomachus]

24. Very interesting

I worked for a newspaper years ago and we were fined by the government for non-payment of wages. The cases they cited were things like one reporter who was going to play racquetball with his buddy after their shift ended. His buddy had some work to finish up and the first guy waited around reading a book. The government said that if he was in the building he had to be paid. Our lawyers asked whether we had to toss him outside after his shift ended or pay him. Their answer was yes. There were other similar cases. Even the employees said they didn't expect to be paid. They were just hanging around waiting. The fine was in the tens of thousands of dollars.

[sunnystarr]

37. That's probably why they classify workers

Exempt you're on salary and no matter how many hours you work you get your agreed-on salary. If you're non-exempt you get paid hourly and should get paid overtime after working 40 hours. Many employers don't allow overtime without management approval. Large companies use a time clock to clock in and out. Some use temp agencies to avoid the issue completely and others use independent contractors for the same reason.

It seems unlikely that a guy hanging around waiting for their friend to then play racquetball would end up in a complaint. Who would risk their job for that? Unless he did that constantly. Sounds like that employer had a problem in controlling and managing their payroll (time cards or system for turning in hours).

[nichomachus]

49. No, not at all -- none of that

We found it odd that it ended up as a complaint -- but that was back in the '70s. At that time, the goal of the Labor Dept. was to create jobs and by being very strict about overtime, they could force some employers to hire more people.

Now, they're on the side of the corporations and help them find ways to screw employees.

Reporters can't really use time clocks because so much of their work is out of the building. You don't always come to the office before an assignment or after a night event. So, it's self-reported.

Also, at a small newspaper, the newsroom was kind of like a clubhouse. People would come in even when they weren't working to chat for a while with people who were still there. It's not like a factory -- or even a large corporation. That's why we were taken aback by this whole nonsense.

[sunnystarr]

57. Which is why you'd expect

reporters to be on salary and not hourly.

[Nye Bevan]

20. I'm a big Amazon fan but this seems like a very unfair ruling to me.

Having said that, given that this was a unanimous ruling there must be a strong legal reason for it. I don't think Ginsburg etc. are corporate stooges. Can any DUer better versed in this than me elaborate?

[MohRokTah]

25. The legal reason is the security screening is a facility requirement, not an employer requirement.

The warehouse is not the employer. Integrity Staffing Solutions Inc. is the employer and is a third party engaged by Amazon to do the work.

Amazon does not own the warehouse. Amazon is a customer of the warehouse and houses merchandise to be picked, packed and shipped.

Amazon was not a party in this lawsuit.

So the warehouse, which has multiple customers only one of which is Amazon, has a security requirement when anybody leaves that they must undergo security screening to insure nothing is removed from the facility. They are liable for loss by theft.

This is no different than JFK International Airport requiring security screenings of everybody entering the terminal area. Employees at restaurants in those terminals are required to be screened and are not entitled to be paid for the time they spend in line waiting to be screened.

[Nye Bevan]

35. Thanks for the detailed explanation (nt)

[Vattel]

56. You are mistaken. SCOTUS did not deny that the security screening is an employee requirement.

The basis of the ruling was that the screening was not compensable under the relevant law because it was not an integral part of the worker's job.

[Jim Lane]

58. I disagree. That seemed to play no role in the decision.

I admit I merely skimmed the opinion and the concurrence, but AFAICT neither made any mention of the distinction between Integrity and Amazon.

The correct explanation is provided by onenote in #44 in this thread. People who condemn the result as unfair are missing the point. SCOTUS isn't responsible for establishing workplace rules that are fair to all workers; it's responsible for interpreting and applying the rules that Congress has established. In this instance, the Court looked at the statute passed by our elected representatives.

These workers probably aren't unionized or otherwise covered by a contract, so they have no legal right to overtime except what's given them under the federal Fair Labor Standards Act (or perhaps by state law but presumably Nevada has no such law). Under the FLSA, there is no right to overtime for time spent in

activities which are preliminary or postliminary to (the employee's) principal activities....

(See the statutory quotation at pages 4-5 of the above-linked opinion.)

Here, all nine Justices agreed that the employees' principal activity is packaging the goods for shipment to customers. The security check, even though mandatory, fell within the exemption that Congress had provided.

In sum, it was Congress's decision that certain activities that take up the worker's time and are required by the employer and are solely for the benefit of the employer are nevertheless not covered by the FLSA. The Supreme Court correctly interpreted that statute and correctly chose to apply the law as written rather than as some of the Justices quite possibly think it should have been written.

[FSogol]

41. There was an earlier case involving mine workers. They would arrive at the mine entrance, but it

would take an hour to get down to their work site. Thy wanted paid for the travel time, but the court couldn't distinguish between commute time for any other job and that time. Sorry, for not knowing the particulars, I heard it on NPR while not getting paid for my commute.

[onenote]

44. Jewell Ridge v. UMW

A 1945 case in which it was held that the time spent by miners getting from above ground to the location inside a mine where they would be working was compensable under the FLSA. It was one of three cases that touched on the question of when the workday began for purposes of the FSLA that ultimately led to the enactment of the Portal-to-Portal Act in 1947, which was intended to narrow the situations in which time spent in preliminary or postliminary activities would be compensable. It is precisely because Congress made the change it did in 1947 that the SCOTUS reached the unanimous conclusion in the current case that the time spent waiting to go through a security check was non compensable.

[FSogol]

45. Thanks.

This is what is cool about DU. No other forum on the web consists of such knowledgeable members. I can mention some fact-free snippet and someone pipes up with the factual info. Keep up the good work.

[Jim Lane]

60. I agree with your point about the FLSA amendment

I quoted the relevant statutory provision in #58 in this thread.

The criticism of SCOTUS in this thread is mistaken.

[whatthehey]

22. The ruling is harsh and against common sense. However SCOTUS is tasked with neither

They are tasked with resolving conflicts between rulings, applying laws as written, and determining constitutionality.

A 9-0 ruling means that this was universally agreed upon as the correct interpretation of the laws as written, not the nicest or fairest or even most just in an abstract sense.

The laws were written this way for a reason. If I work at company X doing job Y, then I am paid by X for doing Y, not getting to X or studying Y or leaving X.

It is a condition of my, as in many other people's, employment, that I show up to work at their site, that I am dressed and groomed reasonably professionally, that I can travel as needed including internationally, that I stay current on the body of knowledge in my profession, that I am responsive to global contact needs outside 8-5, and so on. These are conitions of employment, not services I perform for pay, so they all cost me money and time out of pocket. I am also bound to the inconveniences of company policies about security and SOPs regardless of my personal preferences or convenience. Again I am not paid for these things, because they are not what I do. But they are conditions of getting and keeping the job that I do do.

The reason this was a quick unanimous verdict is that this is the law. If it weren't, claims for time spent commuting, passport fees, clothing allowances and the like would be never ending. Companies mostly won't hire engineers without engineering degrees. It's a condition every bit as rigid as security checks. Should engineers be paid for their time studying on a discrete basis? Should IT folks be paid for keeping up to date?

[ND-Dem]

23. If you're required to be on a job site, you're working.

[MohRokTah]

26. If you're required to be on a job site BY YOUR EMPLOYER, you're working.

Intrepid Staffing Solutions does not have a security screening requirement. The warehouse does. The warehouse does not employ these people but has a security requirement for anybody leaving the facility.

McDonald's on Terminal 1 does not have a security screening requirement, JFK International Airport does. McDonald's employees who work at JFK International airport are not entitled to be on the clock while they are going through security.

[ND-Dem]

27. "intrepid" = lol. keep pushing the line that *integrity* and amazon are separate companies and that

the general public goes in and out of the warehouses amazon owns and runs.

Amazon: founded 1994 (1995 as "amazon&quot

Integrity: founded 1997.

[MohRokTah]

29. They ARE separate companies.

Amazon is not the only client Integrity Staffing Solutions has.

Integrity Staffing Solutions is not the only temporary agency providing staff on the premises of the warehouse.

The warehouse is not and never was owned by Amazon.

Amazon is not the only company housing merchandise in the warehouse.

Organizations will tour facilities for a variety of reasons. I've toured multiple warehouses across the country in my capacity as a management consultant. Huge facilities such as the one where Intrepid provided staff to Amazon have multiple clients and there are multiple staffing solutions for the work performed by and for those clients within the facility.

Amazon outsources the housing of merchandise to multiple warehouses across the country. They are not set up to own the facilities and doing so would be a drain on their business model.

Amazon outsources the picking, packing, and shipping of merchandise in these facilities to multiple temporary staffing agencies across the country. They are not set up to employ the thousands of employees needed to do this work, especially since turnover in warehouse work has always been and always will be incredibly high, and being able to scale up and down as seasonal trends differ is only efficiently done by temporary staffing agencies.

Seriously, get a fucking clue how this works.

[Yo_Mama]

32. Very nice explanation. n/t

[Yo_Mama]

30. Take your outrage to Congress, where it can achieve something.

This has nothing to do with whether you think the law is just or not, but what the law is.

Why don't you read the opinion?
http://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/14pdf/13-433_5h26.pdf

As is pointed out, long ago (1940s) the SC created a "work" definition which was quite expansionist, and Congress promptly overruled the SC by passing a law with certain definitions of work. Unless that law were unconstitutional (it is not), no federal court can simply overrule Congress. The Labor Dept has written regs to implement that law (The Portal To Portal Act), and the decision is compatible with those regulations.

The court system is not a legislative body. Take your outrage to Congress, where you can achieve something.

Understand that a non-elected legislative body (which is what you appear to want the federal judiciary to be) is a type of tyranny.

[MohRokTah]

39. ^^^ This right here. eom

[onenote]

33. Any particular reason why this two month old decision is being discussed now?

It wasn't a particularly controversial decision. The law, as currently written, pretty much left the court no choice. When the Fair Labor Standards Act was first passed, it didn't draw a clear line as to when the workday began and ended. The result was a flood of lawsuits. So Congress amended the law (this was in 1947, by the way). Under the revised law (known as the Portal to Portal Act) "...no employer shall be subject to any liability or punishment under the Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938, as amended, . . . on account of the failure of such employer . . . to pay an employee overtime compensation, for or on account of any of the following activities of such employee engaged in on or after the date of the enactment of this Act— “(1) walking, riding, or traveling to and from the actual place of performance of the principal activity or activities which such employee is employed to perform", and “(2) activities which are preliminary to or postliminary to said principal activity or activities, which occur either prior to the time on any particular workday at which such employee commences, or subsequent to the time on any particular workday at which he ceases, such principal activity or activities."

Thus, the statute itself distinguishes between activities that are essentially part of the ingress and egress process, on the one hand, and activities that constitute the actual work of consequence performed for an employer, on the other hand. Just as it has been held for years that the time spent waiting on line to check in or check out of work (even if checking in and/or out is required) is not part of the workday, going through a screening process as part of the process of leaving the workplace at the end of the work day is, at least the way the statute was written and has been interpreted by the Department of Labor for the past six or seven decades, not part of the workday.

The problem, in other words, is not with the court, but with the statute, which has been clear to every court that has reviewed it but for one.

[MohRokTah]

40. The OP is mass posting anything negative about Amazon. eom

[FSogol]

42. Amazon, Walmart, wage slaves, slavery, etc doesn't ring a Bell for anyone?

[FSogol]

46. I think is obvious that you are Jeff Bezos. Where the all the f'ing books I ordered?

[MohRokTah]

47. I can only wish I was!

He definitely was smart and hit the online book ordering thing at the right time.

[sunnystarr]

43. Yes there is a reason ...

The OP has a problem with Amazon and is posting all he/she can find. This is the 3rd I've seen posted within 4 hours.

[MohRokTah]

48. He/she posted four last night. eom

[Brigid]

36. All these companies so worried about "time theft" by their employees

And yet to steal time from their employees is quite acceptable. Amazon hired this staffing company; that makes them ultimately responsible for this anti-worker behavior.

[taught_me_patience]

38. It's not really "wage theft" when the supreme court rules 9-0

that it isn't.

[VanillaRhapsody]

52. If its not an "integral" part of the job...then that means they have the right NOT to put up with it

am I right?

[onenote]

54. Nope

Standing in line to punch a clock is required, but its not an integral part of the actual work that the person is paid to do. Thus, under the law, as modified by Congress in 1947, its not compensable.

Consider the situation of a business that has a fixed starting point to the day. To be at your station, you have to clock in first. But there are hundreds or more employees all arriving and having to clock in. Is the worker that shows up 20 minutes before the starting time to clock in entitled to more compensation than the one that shows up five minutes before starting time? How would it work if everyone showed up at the same time -- would the person at the front of the line be entitled to more compensation that the one at the back of the line, when they both end up at their work stations at the appointed hour for actually performing their jobs?