The California Supreme Court will soon decide if employees must be compensated for time spent waiting in their cars to pass through an employer’s security check. Specifically, the California Supreme Court will decide:

1. whether time spent in a personal vehicle waiting to scan an identification badge, have security guards look into their vehicle, and then exit a security gate is considered hours worked;
2. whether time spent driving between a security gate and an employee parking lot is considered hours worked; and,
3. whether collectively bargained-for meal-time, when workers cannot leave the premises but are not required to engage in employer-mandated activities, count as payable work hours.

In this case, Huerta v. CSI Electrical Contractors, Inc., the named plaintiff, Huerta, claims that his employer required him and other putative class members to arrive at a security gate entrance controlled by his employer, wait in vehicle lines for the employer’s biologists to approve the road for travel, then wait in the vehicle to have their badges swiped by people employed or controlled by the employer. Huerta further alleges that once they cleared security, employees then drove to the parking lots, but during the drive, they were subject to a broad range of job site rules and restrictions for which employees could be suspended or terminated if they did not comply.

The key question here is whether this security process rises to a sufficient level of employer control such that the time...

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