The U. S. Supreme Court recently issued a unanimous decision in Integrity Staffing Solutions v. Busk, which denied employees’ claims that they were owed overtime pay for time spent waiting in line for post-shift security screenings meant to deter theft. The workers, who fulfilled customer orders at an Amazon warehouse, contended that because the security screening was mandatory, it was part of their work assignment for which they were entitled to compensation. Their employer, Integrity Staffing, argued that the screenings did not in any way affect the employees’ ability to fulfill their normal warehouse duties, and therefore were no more a part of their paid workday than walking from the parking lot to the warehouse floor. In siding with Integrity Staffing, the Court makes it much easier for employers to defend against wage-and-hour claims for many pre- and post-shift employee activities.

The employees’ claim in Integrity Staffing was brought under the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA), which established various standards for private-sector employees, including minimum and overtime wages, youth employment, and recordkeeping. After a series of employee-friendly rulings, it was amended in 1947 by the Portal-to-Portal Act to narrow wage-and-hour rights developed under the FLSA, including limitations on “preliminary” and “postliminary” activities requiring compensation. These limitations have been interpreted to mean that pay is required only for time spent on the principal activities that employees are hired to perform, and only for tasks “integral and indispensable” to such activities. The Court decided in Integrity Staffing that because the security screenings are not an intrinsic element of the job of retrieving products from shelves and packaging them for shipment, the Integrity Solutions employees are not entitled to extra pay for time spent in security-check lines. Because the employees were hired to fill boxes, not stand in line, the Court said that to rule in their favor would sweep into “principal activities” the very type of activities the Portal-to-Portal Act was designed to exclude from compensation.

Although this decision is a major victory for employers and will likely result in the dismissal of dozens of similar class action suits seeking damages under the FLSA, it is not comprehensive—it protects employers only from FLSA claims, and individual states may have more restrictive statutes requiring compensation for time spent in activities such as security checks. Furthermore, this case in no way limits unionized workforces from demanding extra pay for such preliminary or postliminary activities under collective bargaining. In fact, the Supreme Court specifically cited the bargaining table as the venue employees should use to secure remuneration in such cases.