US Supreme Court Rejects Amazon Warehouse Worker Wage Appeal (reuters.com) 52
The U.S. Supreme Court on Monday declined to hear Amazon's bid to avoid a lawsuit seeking to ensure that warehouse workers for the e-commerce giant get paid for the time it takes them to go through extensive post-shift security screenings. From a report: The justices, on the first day of their new term, turned away an appeal by Amazon and a contractor of a lower court ruling reviving the workers' claims under Nevada state law. The decision comes five years after the Supreme Court issued a ruling in the case that barred similar claims under federal law. A group of Amazon warehouse workers who package and ship merchandise filed a proposed class action lawsuit in 2010 against the contractor, Integrity Staffing Solutions, which provides some of the hourly employees for Amazon. The workers sought compensation for submitting to what they called mandatory "post-9/11 type of airport security" screenings that are aimed at preventing employee theft. The workers have said the screening takes around 25 minutes to complete. Amazon called the plaintiffs' description of the protocol "grossly inaccurate" in court papers.
Editorial fail (Score:5, Insightful)
You know, some basic editorial/language skills could've resulted in a Slashdot title worded so that that it didn't suggest the exact opposite of what the story actually is. But precedent shows that's too much to hope for from Slashdot these days.
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To be fair, it's Reuters bad headline. They just reused it.
Better title: (Score:5, Informative)
US Supreme Court rejects Amazon management appeal against court case brought by warehouse workers concerning their wages.
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Glad to see I'm not the only one who's confused about what's really happening here.
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Glad to see I'm not the only one who's confused about what's really happening here.
I thought it was obvious: the Supreme Court is full of amazons who are appealing to rejected warehouse wage-workers.
Makes sense in one way... (Score:2, Insightful)
This is really a fundamental rule that should be passed as part of legislature by representatives - that time spent on behalf of a company should be compensated.
That includes travel time to and from work, errands for work - basically anything that work is taking from your life - should be compensated for as a general rule.
Otherwise, businesses will continue to find ways of maximizing those 'opportunities' to externalize increasing costs onto employees - and insist that it is a pure honor to pay those costs
Re: Makes sense in one way... (Score:5, Insightful)
Compensation for travel time to/from work would be problematic, because companies would start declining to hire suburbanites with long commutes.
Re: Makes sense in one way... (Score:5, Insightful)
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As a fully salaried/benefitted employee, I've generally erred on the side of it being my time lost - call me a sucker if you like.
As a fellow sucker, that's generally how it works. With a few exceptions, salary is essentially per-day rate, and you are simply expected to do whatever you've agreed to. There is no such thing as "company time" or "personal time". All time is paid time.
Now, along with recognizing that all of your time is paid, the company should also realize that they pay for all of your time. If you have to leave for a mid-day appointment, you shouldn't be expected to "make up time" later. On salary, you're expected to fi
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The problem is that culturally the developed world is obsessed with the idea of toil equalling productivity and human value. I used to work at a restaurant where I had a set number of duties, chiefly maintaining back of house. Eventually I got good enough at them, and got the place to the point where I needed only a short amount of time most days to maintain cleanliness and organization.
The GM couldn't stand it. I had to spend every moment of every day looking busy. So I spent most of my days rubbing clean
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Agreed. You have a choice of where you live and a choice of where you work.
Yes, you do, and I'm not personally advocating for companies paying for your commute time, (otherwise, sure, I'll commute 2 hrs each way to work each day)
However, whereas you may have a choice of where you live, in some cities, like where I am, you are priced out of working near your office unless you're an executive... or willing to live in one of the dangerous seedy neighborhoods. The jobs are on one side of town, affordable and safe housing are on the other side of town.
Still don't think company should
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If it's an activity required by the employer, it's typically considered work. Amazon might be arguing this one but they're unlikely to win based on existing case law. One example comes to mind is that Geico was sued (and lost) over the time it required employees to start up and log in to their computers in their call centers. Their system based paid hours on how long a staffer was 'online/available' in the call center system, but didn't account for the 5-10 minutes to get everything started up so they we
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unless you live on site and need to wait for there bus to pick you up.
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Compensation for travel time to/from work would be problematic, because companies would start declining to hire suburbanites with long commutes.
Okay, then they'll have no employees, they won't be able to do business, they'll go out of business, and someone more willing to pay people for their time (or locate themselves where the workers are) will be able to take their place.
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Compensation for travel time to/from work would be problematic, because companies would start declining to hire suburbanites with long commutes.
Why is that a problem?
Re: Makes sense in one way... (Score:2)
> It will help discourage sprawl,
I hate to break it to you, but that horse left the barn 2+ generations ago, and the barn itself burned down. Donut-sprawl (dense core, with donut of single-family inner suburbs surrounded by clusters of newer outer suburbia more dense overall than the inner core itself was 50 years ago) is a fact of American life that isn't going away... what zoning doesn't prevent, homeowners associations & deed restrictions will, for at least another 50-100 years.
It's like how in Mi
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Not really. For a concentration of large businesses around me, I see three reasonable options:
1) Pay more so that employees who want to live closer to work can afford it.
2) If you want to pay less and force your employees out to the suburbs, pay for their commute.
3) Pay less for their commute by investing in public transportation infrastructure (this could be a tax incentive, for example).
There are pros and cons to each, but a reasonable balance could be found be
That's the rule that was upheld (not commute time) (Score:4, Insightful)
6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in 2018 held that under the applicable state law, âoeworkâ includes any activity âoecontrolled or required by the employer and pursued necessarily and primarily for the benefit of the employer and his business.â Therefore, this includes time spent waiting in line and undergoing mandatory security screenings, because such screenings are required by the employer and are for the employerâ(TM)s benefit.
The Supreme Court chose to leave that ruling in effect.
Where I go before and after work, when I leave the the employer's premises, is none of their business. They don't pay me to drive to the crack house or wherever I go after work.
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Who "won"? (Score:2)
After reading TFA, I still can't understand which side "won", the workers or the employers?
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On the Federal level, the workers lost.
But if your State is able to pass a law contradicting the Supreme Court on this specific issue, like Nevada seems to have done, the Supreme Court seems to be willing to let the State's decision stand.
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Except the issue here is that amazon is literally holding employees prisoner for half an hour without paying them.
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This is just one fight in a long war (Score:3)
I would say Amazon won here. They delayed the lawsuit for several years, pocketing millions of dollars in wages in the meantime.
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As usual, only one side won: the lawyers.
Simple test (Score:4, Interesting)
There's a very simple test for this. Can you get in your car and leave the worksite RIGHT NOW without penalty? If no, you're on the clock.
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Can you get in your car and leave the worksite RIGHT NOW without penalty?
"May I" - sure, my employer has no problem with me leaving when I punch out. "Can I" - no, because I have to walk 10 minutes to get to the parking lot and open my car door to get in.
OK, that's hypothetical, but with some very large employers it's going to be true for a percentage of their employees.
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In Amazon's case, you will be told that you must wait in the security line first. In other words, one final task before you can head towards your car.
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Technically, the walk to your car is no longer the worksite. The moment you walk out the front door or such that are technically no longer
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Most hourly employees who are not under arrest will find that if they exit without leave, they will be written up or just plain fired. That would be the penalty.
In other words, yea they are free to leave, but not without penalty.
Pay workers well and there won't be theft (Score:2, Insightful)
If workers are paid well and treated with respect, they won't steal from their employers and these security searches won't be necessary. Even barring that, other industries pay their workers for time-on-site even if it takes a while to get to their actual work location.
Employee theft is a sign that employees need to steal to make ends meet, or they don't respect their employers enough to feel bad about doing it. If those warehouse workers were getting $25 or $30 an hour instead of minimum wage, this would b
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Employee theft is a sign that employees need to steal to make ends meet,
OK, better pay may help here
or they don't respect their employers enough to feel bad about doing it.
Ah, that would explain at least some of the highly-paid employees and executives who rob their employers blind, or at least try to.
Re: Pay workers well and there won't be theft (Score:1, Troll)
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If workers are paid well and treated with respect, they won't steal from their employers
If that were true there wouldn't be so many millionaire executives embezzling funds from their companies.
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If workers are paid well and treated with respect, they won't steal from their employers
Bullcrap. Look at corporate boardrooms for an obvious example of well paid people behaving unethically.
Some people will never steal. Others will steal anytime they think they can get away with it. Many more will steal if they see others getting away with it, and rationalize it by saying "everybody is doing it".
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Amazon and a contractor of a lower court (Score:1)
This article was written by Reuters? (Score:1)
My toilet paper is treated better (Score:2)
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