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Amazon staffing security check case will have impact

October 09, 2014

The US Supreme Court heard oral arguments Wednesday in the case Integrity Staffing vs. Busk, where employees of the staffing firm are arguing they should be paid for time spent waiting in a security line to exit. But whatever the court’s decision, it will have a major impact.

“This case will create a significant precedent whichever way the court decides,” said Fiona Coomb, director, legal & regulatory research, at Staffing Industry Analysts. “However the financial implications of a decision that such security checks are an integral part of the work would be immense for staffing firms and hirers particularly at busy times like the run up to the Christmas period. It would also stretch interpretation of the law and create uncertainty in relation to a number of activities ancillary to work across different sectors.”

Plaintiffs Jesse Busk and Laurie Castro worked at Amazon warehouses in Nevada but were employed by Integrity Staffing Solutions. They claim they spent up to 25 minutes at the end of each day to go through a security check, and they argue they should be paid for that time.

Integrity argues the Portal-to-Portal Act of 1947 exempts from pay pre-shift and post-shift travel time and other “activities which are preliminary to or postliminary to” an employee’s principal production activities. Standing in the security line comes under the exemption, it argues. A federal court in Nevada ruled in favor of Integrity, but the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals reversed the lower court’s decision related to security line time. Integrity then took its case to the Supreme Court.

In a friend of the court brief, the National Federation of Retailers argued a ruling that security line time is compensable and that other retailers use similar security measures.

“Affirmance of the Ninth Circuit’s decision would significantly harm retailers that use employee bag searches — 63 percent of retailers in 2012 — and other employee security screenings, as loss prevention measures similar in purpose to the security screenings at issue here,” the organization wrote. “Affirmance would not only generate potential legal liability for retailers, but would impose substantial costs on retailers that must reconfigure their security screening and time clock procedures in order to continue using employee bag searches.”

The US federal government also filed a friend of the court brief supporting Integrity’s side saying the Department of Labor had already issued interpretive regulation that address situations such as this.

“The United States also employs many employees who are covered by the FLSA, 29 U.S.C. 203(e)(2)(A), and requires physical-security checks in many settings,” according to the federal brief. “The United States accordingly has a substantial interest in the resolution of the question presented,” according to the federal brief.

One pundit on Wednesday wrote the workers’ argument seemed to go poorly. However, the Supreme Court’s thoughts on the case won’t be known until it releases an opinion, and it has until June to so.

For more on the case, click here.