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

[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.