Amazon employees in Oregon were not entitled to compensation for required security screenings, the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals recently decided.
"I've seen cases going both ways" on whether security screenings are compensable, said Steven Suflas, an attorney with Holland & Hart in Salt Lake City. There are dozens of cases pending on security screenings, he said.
Phillip Ray, an attorney with Kluger Healey in Lincroft, N.J., said HR professionals in states with wage and hour laws that have a similar compensability test as the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) don't need to compensate employees for security screenings.
Dan Altchek, an attorney with Saul Ewing in Baltimore, said many states do not follow the standards of the federal Portal-to-Portal Act—an FLSA amendment that excluded certain activities from compensable work time under the law—when interpreting their own wage and hour laws.
Case Originated in Oregon
In a class action, the plaintiff maintained that Amazon unlawfully failed to compensate employees for time waiting for and passing through mandatory screenings before and after work shifts and off-premises meal breaks. The plaintiff worked in a warehouse in Troutdale, Ore.
Here's how the screenings worked at the end of the employees' work shifts, according to an Oregon Supreme Court decision—included in the appendix of the 9th Circuit's decision—on the plaintiff's claims. When employees left the secured area of the warehouse where merchandise was located,...
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