37 ms·
U.S. Supreme Court rejects Amazon warehouse worker wage appeal
- jerf 7y agoBear in mind the base rate of acceptance is single-digit percent low: https://supremecourtpress.com/chance_of_success.html https://supremecourtpress.com/chance_of_success.html
- dlgeek 7y ago"A judge there dismissed the case, citing the 2014 Supreme Court ruling, since Nevada wage laws track their federal counterparts. The Cincinnati, Ohio-based 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in 2018 overturned that decision." So, if the appeals court overturned the dismissal, wouldn't the appeal the Supreme Court denied be to uphold it, meaning that the case should be moving forward? Such a badly worded article.
- michaelt 7y agoAgreed. The title - "rejects Amazon warehouse worker wage appeal" doesn't even make it clear which side filed the appeal which was rejected.
- rtkwe 7y agoSo, trying to follow the sequence of thrown out and overturned, it seems like now it would be going all the way back down to the original court that threw out the lawsuit to go forward? Seems crazy that it's taking this long to settle the question. Tangentially it seems crazy they're not required to pay for the time spent going through security. If they're paid hourly and not free to go they're still on the job.
- FPGAhacker 7y ago> Tangentially it seems crazy they're not required to pay for the time spent going through security. If they're paid hourly and not free to go they're still on the job. It’s an asshole move for sure. I hope they are forced to pay up, and then they will invest in streamlining the process.
- rtkwe 7y ago> In its 2014 ruling in the case, the Supreme Court decided that under a 1947 law that amended the federal Fair Labor Standards Act, companies do not have to pay employees for the time they spend undergoing security checks. It's a supreme court decision that is allowing Amazon to do this [0]. TL;DR the decision is solely on if the "activities are an intrinsic element of the employee’s primary job duties and one that cannot be skipped" and since they were "hired to retrieve products from warehouse shelves, not to undergo security screenings, and the company could eliminate the screenings altogether without impairing the employees’ ability to complete their work" Amazon/warehouse contractor didn't have to pay for it. [0] https://www.idfa.org/news-views/headline-news/article/2014/12/17/supreme-court-decides-case-on-fair-labor-standards-act https://www.idfa.org/news-views/headline-news/article/2014/1...
- DangitBobby 7y agoIt's a relief to know that the Supreme Court is so fair and even-handed in its treatment of employers and employees!
- mentat 7y agoTalk to Congress about laws, it's their job to change them.
- tom_mellior 7y agoIt was the Supreme Court's job to change the laws about abortion and gay marriage and school segregation when Congress obviously messed up or failed to act.
- Dylan16807 7y agoThose are issues about treating people humanely and as equals. This issue boils down to whether people have to work 8 vs. 9 hours for a certain amount of pay, with some paperwork issues piled on top. It matters but there aren't any human rights involved in any meaningful way. The law isn't inherently invalid.
- arnmac 7y agoThe current court is often rejecting cases that they feel are more the responsibility of the legislature to resolve. I had heard an opinion on this that the court thought it was the problem of Congress to fix this NOT the court.
- rtkwe 7y agoI'd feel much better about that if there was a way for the court to guarantee the question would be addressed by the legislature where as right now they usually just continue to exist in the grey area status quo.
- rayiner 7y agoYes. The Supreme Court rejected a claim in 2014 under federal law. Plaintiffs replead claims under state law. While a district court found the claims barred by state law as well, the Sixth Circuit found the claim were not. The Supreme Court declined to review the Sixth Circuit‘s ruling, meaning the case can go forward under the Sixth Circuit’s decision. The Supreme Court (and appellate courts) are a batch system, with high throughout but poor latency. The Supreme Court reviews 7,000-8,000 petitions for certiorari each year, rendering judgment in the merits after oral argument on about 80-100 cases per year. Each case typically has hundreds of pages of briefing, rulings below, etc., and requires reference to hundreds of additional pages of precedent and other authorities. All that is done by the nine justices, each with the assistance of four clerks.
- dev_dull 7y agoThe bulk of those cases end with them saying “deal with it in your state for now” by declining to hear the case. Personally I think the system works great but I’ve never been a “too down” style person anyway.
- azernik 7y ago> 7,000-8,000 petitions for certiorari each year, rendering judgment in the merits after oral argument on about 80-100 cases per year That's what this line refers to: petitions for cert are requests to have the Court hear a case. They only accept ~10%.
- JackFr 7y agoIf I understand your comment (which is much clearer than the article) the 2014 US Supreme Court decision with respect to the 1947 Act is still valid Federal. The 6th Circuit ruled that the US Supreme Court decision and the 1947 Act do not preclude lawsuits on the state level. That makes more sense, because it seemed odd that if the 6th Circuit disagreed with a 2014 Supreme Court ruling, they would hear it.
- FPGAhacker 7y agoIt seems eminently reasonable and obvious that workers should be compensated for performing the Duties of their job while at work or in premises. Clearly submitting to a security check before being allowed to leave work is an obligation they incur as an employee. They should not be able to “clock out” until after such security checks.
- jbob2000 7y agoI get what you're saying, but these are the ways that management finds the margins that allow you to receive cheap products on your doorstep in 2 days.
- DangitBobby 7y agoThen the products should cost more or get here in 3 days.
- dev_dull 7y agoKind of like how people say “then unhappy amazon employees should simply find another job”?
- slothtrop 7y agolet's head over to the job tree, what sort of bullshit dropping to the ground today?
- DangitBobby 7y agoDamn, yeah, I guess these guys should really be asking their new employer if they'll be subject to wage theft before they get hired.
- mikelyons 7y agoOr just a̶s̶s̶u̶m̶e̶ be vigilant about it, corporations are amoral profit machines and have no incentive to care about replaceable workers.
- JamesSchriver 7y agoI find the this whole wage debate rather interesting, because it is not only an extremely misunderstood issue, at the same times as it is a core measure of the condition of society (Please do not confuse that with a notion of "health", but rather the objective "condition" of the society, also not just the economy) The ideal state of any economy is one in which balance of opportunities exists to the point where an equilibrium is created between employers and employees, or even the transmutation of employees into employers; where you are paid what an efficient profit seeking employer is able to pay and what you ask for as you sell your labor (encompassing all manner of work). What we unfortunately today have, most notably in the USA, is not only a distorted, but also a deliberately and intentionally distorted labor market in which the ruling class puts immense pressure on the scales against the working class in order to manipulate the system and market, which amounts to fraud. It comes in various forms, but one of them is relevant to this issue, that being the importation of subversive labor to artificially drive down wages in order to turn the delta into profits. That's what this story is about, as much as the immigration issue that the ruling class has convinced the "liberal" side of the political spectrum to champion, against the interest of the working people they claim to champion, and for the profit of the ruling class, whether by corporate profit or personal savings when they hire nannies, cooks, maids, landscapers, etc. about their homes. As interesting as I find this issue in a general sense, it is also sad watching what amounts to the ruling class manipulating and deceiving and defrauding the ordinary people no differently than they have for hundreds of years, including things like convincing regular people that "immigration" is wonderful, while not explaining the fact that without immigration people would be far far better off. Immigration is a ruling class con job, on both the origin and destination end. On the destination end it leads to things like this subject article where workers are desperately trying ad hoc procedures to untangle the gordian knot that could easily be undone by ceasing immigration, and on the originating end the destination ruling class are syphoning off human resources that could have led to the development of the originating country, while also sabotaging destination workers and people; while the origin ruling class is happy to be rid o the motivated and driven people who could likely organize and demand changes that would see their rule challenged. I got a bit off track, but as much as I find that people have a hard time understanding that this subject issue is directly related to the exploitative and fraudulent and manipulative practice of "immigration", aka, shifting human resources around globally to serve the ruling class; I also wish I could understand why people do not seem to want to accept that reality as they fawn over the ruling class that sabotages them for personal profit, while at the same time lamenting the ruling class' exploitative nature otherwise. It's quite an odd phenomenon.
- kevin_b_er 7y agoIt seems crazy that our worker laws are so degraded by corporate interests that the worker can be compelled to do a task without pay. Fortunately Nevada is taking a stand against slavery that the US Supreme Court refused to do in 2014.
- JMTQp8lwXL 7y agoIt sounds like the post-shift screening shouldn't be necessary. If they're not paying you, you should be free to go. The worker should try opting-out of the screening: it should be an OSHA issue if you can't freely leave the building at anytime.
- plasticchris 7y agoMost likely they are an at will employee in the USA so they would just be fired.
- korzun 7y ago> it should be an OSHA issue if you can't freely leave the building at anytime Why in the world would that be an OSHA issue?
- paxys 7y ago"Sure you are free to go. And don't bother showing up tomorrow."
- JMTQp8lwXL 7y agoIf everyone started refusing, they might be willing to change policy. That much overturn at once could be problematic.
- paxys 7y agoAll workers banding together and presenting a united front? Sounds familiar..
- Dylan16807 7y agoAt that point you're very far from a legality issue.
- adfgadfasa 7y agoHN re-inventing unions is one of my favourite memes ;).
- 7y ago
- trenning 7y agoIs it not crazy that is has to come down to a Supreme Court case for Jeff Bezos and Amazon to treat their employees fairly? This isn't a company that's on a sink or swim margin where this will collapse the company. Not when they're fine stocking all the break rooms in corporate offices with starbucks and AWS people get shelves full snacks all day. But give an hourly employee a little more money to accommodate their self enforced security is a line too far. If you're an Amazon corporate employee, you support these decisions by working there.
- notyourwork 7y agoSnacks and coffee are laughable costs compared to salaries.
- chabes 7y agoThis isn’t about salaries, or about Amazon not being able to afford to do the right thing. Amazon has a surplus of money.. enough to buy other large corporations, like Whole Foods. And Jeff Bezos has so much money, he literally doesn’t know what to do with it. Amazon will pay billions in legal costs before ever considering costs that actually benefit the workers.
- gbronner 7y agoTrue story: Friend saw Jeff Bezos waiting in line for 20 minutes for a pizza. He could have paid for an uber copter to drop one on him, or offered 10k to each of the people in front of him. He didn't. He has principles, and the principle is that you work for money and then use it to buy things that you care about.
- dragonwriter 7y agoEr, how would any of the behaviors he didn't take that you refer to violate that principle? I mean, if he cares about getting pizza, either of those would have been consistent with it. You've got an example of a choice and a principle, but the choice is in no way illustrative of the principle any more than any alternative choice, including paying gunmen to murder everyone in line in front of him, would be.
- salimmadjd 7y agoSlightly better worded article: Amazon Rejected by U.S. Supreme Court on Pay Claims by Workers https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-10-07/amazon-rejected-by-u-s-supreme-court-on-pay-claims-by-workers https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-10-07/amazon-re...
- deleted 7y ago[deleted]
- patientplatypus 7y agoSerious question. Kavanaugh lied during his confirmation hearing about sexually assaulting many women (https://www.salon.com/2019/09/16/republicans-know-brett-kavanaugh-lied-under-oath-they-just-dont-care/ https://www.salon.com/2019/09/16/republicans-know-brett-kava...). We have evidence that the POTUS, attorney general, and vice-POTUS are all complicit in international corruption (and they were major sponsors of Kavanaugh). At what point are Supreme Court decisions non-binding as the justices themselves are criminals?
- deleted 7y ago[deleted]
- Dylan16807 7y agoCriminal behavior doesn't inherently disqualify you from being a judge.
- patientplatypus 7y agoWait, really?
- henryfjordan 7y agoIt's impeachable, but you'd need to actually impeach him.
- Dylan16807 7y agoDo you care if your judge used to shoplift? (I'm not interested in talking about real cases here.)
- mruts 7y agoIf I would get fired for not wearing clothes, should I get compensated for the time it takes me to get dressed? Also we could also talk about: dry clean suits, taking showers, cutting hair, shaving, putting on make-up, etc.
- edoceo 7y agoNo, you're generally not on-prem for those tasks. And time for putting on your kit, for jobs that require that, is paid time
- mruts 7y agoSo it would be all good if Amazon did security checks at home?
- edoceo 7y agoThat's not what "on-prem" means at all. I obviously meant Amazon should comp for on-prem time in security screen
- mruts 7y agoYes, fine. I agree. But if Amazon did the security screens off their property, should they be comped? Moreover, why not just make the workers salaried so they can’t complain?
- wingspar 7y agoI guess I can’t read English anymore. The headline to me reads that the WORKERS appeal was rejected, but it’s a ruling FOR the workers, rejecting AMAZON’s appeal.
- mikelyons 7y agoKey paragraph: The U.S. Supreme Court on Monday declined to hear Amazon.com’s bid to avoid a lawsuit seeking to ensure that warehouse workers ... get paid for the time it takes them to go through extensive post-shift security screenings.
- whack 7y agoIf Amazon is paying people minimum wage, then it could be argued that the extra 30 minutes would push them over the edge of minimum wage laws. However, from what I recall of Amazon's announcement this year, they pay all warehouse workers at least $15/hr. This means they are significantly above the minimum wage requirement, even if you factor in the 30 minutes spent in security screenings. In an ideal world, Amazon would factor in the time spent in security screenings, when advertising the job's hourly rate. Ie, workers are spending 5% of their time in security screenings, so the advertised hourly rate should be 5% lower than $15/hr. I would also like for all food-prices in restaurants to factor in taxes for the same reason, but I've thrown the towel on that fight. Ultimately, this seems like a purely cosmetic change with little substance behind it.
- jedberg 7y agoOk, so the key ruling here was in 2014, which said "the Supreme Court declared that such screening procedures were not an 'integral' part of the job. Integrity’s staff at the warehouses...were hired to take products off the shelves and package them for shipment to Amazon’s customers, not to go through security screenings. The Court also found that Integrity could have eliminated the screenings without affecting the workers’ ability to complete their normal tasks." [0] So it seems like if the security isn't integral to the job, then someone should be able to just walk out without doing the screening. Then of course they would get fired for that, and could then sue that they got fired despite the fact that the screening isn't integral to their job duties. The company would either have to claim that the security is integral, or allow others to skip it too. Now of course, a warehouse worker doesn't have the resources to engage in such a lawsuit or live without a job while it plays out, which is what Amazon counts on here. But what if someone agreed to pay all the legal fees and pay the employee an equivalent wage to be a test case? [0] https://www.scotusblog.com/2014/12/no-overtime-pay-for-after-work-security-check/ https://www.scotusblog.com/2014/12/no-overtime-pay-for-after...
- henryfjordan 7y agoThere was a specific law passed by congress to exempt security checks and the like from the FLSA which was essentially the basis of that 2014 ruling (mentioned briefly in the blog post you linked to). The court's hands were tied.
- Bartweiss 7y agoThe Court was looking at whether screenings violated the Fair Labor Standards Act, and specifically at 245 of the Portal-to-Portal Act, which restricted the requirement to pay for pre/post work activity. I get two parts of the rationale, and it's bizarre, but I'm pretty sure the result is that even if Integrity fires you for not doing it, the work still doesn't have to be paid. First, the Court found that performing screenings is not what employees are hired to do: they're not the point of the job, just a condition of employment. This is fairly obvious, but necessary to establish because someone who was paid to do screenings (e.g. as a physical security pen-tester) would obviously need to be paid for that. Second, it found that those screenings are not "integral" to the job. This sounds odd for a required screening, but the context is specifically about the work of the job and not the terms of employment. Pre/post work like donning safety gear or a toolbelt is (legally or practically) necessary to complete the work, so past cases have found that it's effectively part of the labor and must be paid. This is also the context of the final holding: if Integrity could eliminate the screenings without affecting the workers' ability to pick and package goods, they must not be an intrinsic aspect of the job. The Portal to Portal Act says that any labor which benefits the employer must be paid, while generally asserting that other pre/post work does not need to be paid, with commuting as a specific example of necessary-but-unpaid time. So "you'll get fired if you don't do it" isn't actually enough to qualify. Perversely, the result of the act is that employers can't require unpaid, necessary tasks, but can require unpaid, unnecessary tasks. On one level, this makes sense: if putting on a toolbelt, wetsuit, or whatever else is necessary for the work, every employer will require it and failing to pay for that time is clearly harmful. But if an employer makes you recite a corporate chant before starting work, you can quit and go somewhere else. On another level, the contract system seriously distorts the logic: you can only be employed at that Amazon warehouse by fulfilling this restriction. Ultimately, though, the court doesn't care about that. Congress passed a law which effectively says useless work time doesn't need to be paid, so this practice is legal. Which I believe holds all the way through the absurd case: if these screenings took 80 hours a week, they'd still be legal to not pay.
- hypersoar 7y agoThe Supreme Court decision related to this is being unfairly maligned in these comments, even though I'm in total agreement that the end result was bad. I recommend reading the ruling [0] itself; it's readable and quite short, under 2,500 words. The unanimous 2014 decision concluded that Amazon (technically, a contractor) could not be penalized under federal law for not paying workers for time spent getting through security screenings. It turned on the 1947 Portal-to-Portal Act. IANAL, but, looking at the decision, I don't see how they could have reasonably ruled any other way. To summarize: In the 1940s, courts had interpreted the Fair Labor Standards Act (source of the minimum wage, overtime pay, etc.) to imply very broad definitions of "work" and "workweek". This allowed mine workers to sue for back pay for all the time they spent traveling between mine portals and work areas. This wasn't consistent with pre-FLSA practice, and companies suddenly faced huge, unexpected lawsuits for back pay and damages. Congress passed the Portal-to-Portal Act explicitly to clarify the definition of time "on the clock" and prevent these lawsuits, excluding "preliminary" and "postliminary" activities. It is this law that results in Amazon not having to pay their workers for the screenings. Quoting from Sotomayor's concurrence: The security screenings at issue here fall on the “preliminary . . . or postliminary” side of this line. (*citation*) The searches were part of the process by which the employees egressed their place of work, akin to checking in and out and waiting in line to do so activities that Congress clearly deemed to be preliminary or postlimininary. See (*citation*). Indeed, as the Court observes, the Department of Labor reached the very same conclusion regarding similar security screenings shortly after the Portal-to-Portal Act was adopted So, I believe that, obviously, Amazon should have to pay workers for these hours. But the blame for their not having to do so lies with the federal government's inability to update a 1947 law rather than with the courts.
- olliej 7y agoIgnoring the obvious immoral nature of wage theft, let’s look at the argument people keep saying “they could go work somewhere else”. What if there aren’t any other companies they can work for, because Amazon has undercut all their competitors by, among other things, systematically engaging in wage theft. If wage theft is helping to keep the prices down, and other businesses went bust because they were unable to compete with a large business that was ignoring the law, then that isn’t a free market economy, and the victims are now in a position where they have even less power to prevent abuse and wage theft. The fact that the US courts seem to have decided that mandatory unpaid presence is somehow not something that violates existing Labour law is absurd. If my booked hours are from X-Y and it takes 25 minutes for your company to get me to the door, then I should have stopped “working” at Y-25 minutes. If you don’t want to pay me to sit around for 25 minutes you can fix your processes so that it doesn’t take 25 minutes. Or alternatively: you aren’t permitting me to leave, your not paying me, and you don’t believe I’ve actually stolen anything (eg you’re waiting for police to come and arrest me), then that’s false imprisonment and the entire management chain involved in it should be sent to jail. I kid of course, the management chain are the people with money contributing to politicians that are saying illegal imprisonment is awesome.
- avar 7y agoI'm surprised this hasn't come up before, isn't the US full of e.g. military installations where employees work by the hour and clock in/out, and where there's some gate check going in & out of the installation that might take a non-trivial amount of time? E.g. the CIA & NSA have such gates, and presumably the same goes for a bunch of military and security contractors.
- SamReidHughes 7y agoExactly -- can you imagine managing compensation for that time? Would you require hourly employees to have no conversations, no stopping to check their phone, on their way out of the office?
- greggman2 7y agoSo according to this, as of April 2019, Walmart got in trouble in California for security screening in the sense that it was manditory and they were not paying for it. California requires breaks for workers and Walmart was effectively making workers use part of their break time to go through security screening. https://www.plbsh.com/jury-awards-walmart-employees-6-million-for-security-check-policy/ https://www.plbsh.com/jury-awards-walmart-employees-6-millio... I suppose that's not exactly the same since it only covers security time eating into break time not, after work time.