The US Supreme Court today ruled time workers spend waiting to go through security screenings is noncompensable.

In Integrity Staffing v. Busk, staffing firm workers sought payment for time spent waiting in security screening lines when leaving the warehouse of staffing client Amazon.com. The case was filed in 2010. In 2011, a federal court ruled in favor of Integrity Staffing, but that ruling was overturned by an appeals court in 2013, prompting Integrity to bring the case before the Supreme Court. Justices ruled in favor of Integrity unanimously.

According to the opinion, written by Justice Clarence Thomas, the screenings were not an integral part of the worker’s jobs, and therefore are noncompensable.

“An activity is not integral and indispensable to an employee’s principal activities unless it is an intrinsic element of those activities and one with which the employee cannot dispense if he is to perform those activities,” Thomas wrote.

The opinion cited a 1951 opinion letter from the US Department of Labor stating that preshift security screenings were noncompensable. 

The court also rejected the plaintiff’s claim that the time should be compensable because Integrity could have reduced the time it took for them to undergo screening: “These arguments are properly presented to the employer at the bargaining table, not to a court in an FLSA claim,” according to the opinion.