In This Issue:

- SECURITY SCREENINGS: WORKERS MAY HAVE TO WAIT BUT THEY DON’T HAVE TO BE PAID UNDER THE FLSA

- New German law on gender quotas for executive positions in private companies enters into force

- Excerpt from SECURITY SCREENINGS: WORKERS MAY HAVE TO WAIT BUT THEY DON’T HAVE TO BE PAID UNDER THE FLSA:

The Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938 (FLSA) and the Portal to-Portal Act of 1947 are gifts that keep on giving – or taking depending on your point of view. For a minimum wage/overtime statute over 75 years old, one would think that basic concepts like the definition of compensable time and hours worked would have long been settled. Not so, as a recent U.S. Supreme Court decision, Integrity Staffing v. Busk, 574 U.S. ___ (2014), one in a long line of such cases, demonstrates. As employers increasingly impose security screenings to preclude “shrinkage,” this case provides some needed guidance on what is and is not compensable time under federal law. The legal gymnastics of the decision also demonstrate why wage and hour litigation is likely to be with us for a long time.

The facts of the case are straightforward. Employees Jesse Busk and Laurie Castro worked as hourly employees in Nevada for Integrity Staffing Solutions, Inc., which provided warehouse staffing to Amazon.com throughout the United States. The employees retrieved products from warehouse shelves and packaged them for delivery to Amazon.com customers. Integrity required its employees to undergo a security screening before leaving the warehouse at the end of the day, a process that they alleged in their complaint could take up to 25 minutes. They also asserted the time could have been reduced to a de minimis amount with more screeners or staggered shifts. The screening was done to prevent employee theft and thus, according to the complaint, was required by and done for the benefit of the employer, and the employees were entitled to be compensated for their waiting time.