SCOTUS Rules Workers Don't Need to Be Paid for All Their Time Working
SCOTUS Rules Workers Don't Need to Be Paid for All Their Time Working
Thursday, 18 December 2014 11:44
By Moshe Z. Marvit, In These Times | Report
Stories of the horrid conditions for workers in Amazon warehouses have been trickling out for years: The temperatures at the warehouses vary wildly, with some workers having to work in sub-zero conditions, others passing out from days where the temperature soared above 100 degrees, workers crying from not being able to keep up the brutal pace demanded, and then being threatened with termination for crying. And we can now add another indignity to the list, coming yesterday at the hands of the US Supreme Court, which ruled in a 9-0 decision that it is legal for Amazon warehouse workers not to be paid for a portion of their workday.
At the end of long, taxing shifts at warehouses, Amazon requires workers to go through security screenings to ensure that no one has stolen anything from the warehouse. Because Amazon does not hire enough security guards or stagger the quitting times of the workers, these screenings add an additional 25 minutes to each employee’s shift. These workers sued, arguing that under the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA), the staffing company that hired them to work in Amazon warehouses was required to pay them for the time spent in these security checks.
Writing for a unanimous court in Integrity Staffing Solutions v. Busk, Justice Clarence Thomas disagreed. (Though the workers work at an Amazon warehouse, they are hired through the intermediary staffing company, Integrity Staffing Solutions.)
At issue was a provision that Congress placed in the Portal-to-Portal Act of 1947, which amended the FLSA by excluding “activities which are preliminary to or postliminary to said principal activity or activities.” The courts have included in the definition of “principal activities” anything that is “integral and indispensable” to the principal activities. In other words, as the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals (which found in favor of the workers) stated, the test is whether the activity is necessary for the work being performed and done for the benefit of the employer.
More:
http://www.truth-out.org/news/item/28088-scotus-rules-workers-don-t-need-to-be-paid-for-all-their-time-working
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Almost from the time he took his seat. 
