The US Supreme Court has ruled that employees working in an Amazon warehouse are not entitled to be paid for time spent waiting in lines before or after their shifts.
Employees at one of the organisation’s contractors, Integrity Staffing Solutions, that staff a Nevada warehouse often have to wait up to 25 minutes for mandatory security checks.
The case was brought by two former employees who claimed that they were entitled to compensation under the US Fair Labour Standards Act 1938.
They also claimed that the organisation could have reduced the 25-minute waiting time to a minimal amount by adding screeners or staggering shift times.
The court dismissed the complaint for failure to state a claim, holding that screenings were not integral and indispensable to the employees’ principal activities but were instead postliminary and non-compensable.
Amazon was not involved in the lawsuit.
