In a recent decision titled Buero v. Amazon.com Services, Inc., 370 Or. 502 (2022), the Oregon Supreme Court ruled that Oregon’s wage and hour law uses the same definition of “work time” as the federal Fair Labor Standards Act (“FLSA”). The Buero decision resolves what had been a hotly contested legal issue for many years and clarifies that Oregon employers (most of which are subject to Oregon law and the FLSA) satisfy their legal obligation to calculate employees’ compensable time using the same legal standard for both sets of laws.
The facts of the Buero case are straightforward. The employee, Buero, worked at an Amazon warehouse that included a secure area for storing merchandise. When leaving the secured area at the end of their shifts, employees had to pass through a security screening protocol that Amazon put in place to prevent theft. The specific nature of the security screening depended on such factors as whether the employees brought bags (purses, backpacks, etc.) with them into the secured area at the start of their shifts.
Buero argued that Amazon violated Oregon law by not paying her and the warehouse’s other non-exempt employees for the time they spent completing the post-shift security checks. Amazon responded that completing post-shift security checks was not “work time” under Oregon law and pointed to the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision in Integrity Staffing Solutions, Inc. v. Busk,574 U.S. 27 (2014), in which the court held that a similar security protocol...
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