Integrity Staffing Solutions, Inc. v. Busk
The Supreme Court ruled that warehouse workers do not have to be paid for time spent waiting for and undergoing security screenings before they leave work, because that time is not part of the job they were actually hired to do.
The unanimous decision reinforces a narrow legal test for what counts as compensable work time under federal wage law, making it harder for employees to win pay for time spent on tasks connected to, but not essential to, their main job duties.
How it got here: A federal trial court dismissed the workers' claim; the Ninth Circuit reversed in part; the employer asked the Supreme Court to review that ruling.
The Case in Depth
What happened
Integrity Staffing Solutions provided warehouse staffing to Amazon.com. Its hourly employees retrieved and packaged products for delivery, and each day before leaving, they had to pass through an anti-theft security screening, removing items like wallets and keys and walking through metal detectors. Two former employees sued, claiming they should be paid for the roughly 25 minutes daily spent waiting for and undergoing these screenings, which they said existed solely to prevent theft and benefited only the employer.
The question before the Court
Do warehouse workers have to be paid for the roughly 25 minutes a day they spend waiting for and going through an anti-theft security screening before leaving work?
Why it matters
Employers who require security checks, bag searches, or similar screenings can continue to decline paying for that time, even when it takes many minutes each day and serves the employer's own interest in preventing theft. Millions of hourly retail and warehouse workers nationwide are affected, and disputes over unpaid time like this must now be resolved through bargaining, not lawsuits.
What changes now
This is a final merits decision. The Ninth Circuit's ruling in favor of the workers is reversed, so the workers cannot pursue this claim for unpaid screening time under federal wage law. The ruling sets the governing standard for similar disputes nationwide, meaning workers seeking pay for comparable pre- or post-shift security checks will generally need to show the checks are truly inseparable from their core job duties, or seek relief through collective bargaining instead of litigation.
Concurrences and dissents
Concurrence — Justice Sotomayor
Justice Sotomayor agreed with the outcome but wrote to clarify the standards being applied. She explained that an activity is 'indispensable' to a job only when skipping it would make performing the job unsafe or ineffective, not merely somewhat related to the work. She also stressed that the security screenings were more like part of leaving the workplace (akin to checking out) than actual job duties, distinguishing this case from examples like protective gear or knife-sharpening.
How the Court got there
The legal reasoning, step by step
- The Court applied the Portal-to-Portal Act, a 1947 law that excuses employers from paying for activities that are merely 'preliminary' or 'postliminary' to an employee's main job duties, as opposed to the main duties themselves.
- Under existing precedent, an activity counts as part of the compensable 'principal activities' only if it is 'integral and indispensable' — meaning it is a necessary, built-in part of the main job that the employee cannot skip and still do that job.
- The Court held the security screenings were not the job itself: the workers were hired to pull products off shelves and pack them for shipping, not to be screened.
- The Court found the screenings were not integral and indispensable either, because employees could skip them entirely without any effect on their ability to retrieve or package products — the screenings just checked for stolen items on the way out.
- The Court rejected the Ninth Circuit's approach, which asked only whether the employer required the activity and whether it benefited the employer, reasoning that this test would improperly turn nearly any employer-mandated task into paid work, undoing the very limits Congress wrote into the Portal-to-Portal Act.
- The Court also rejected the argument that the screenings became compensable simply because the employer could have shortened the wait by adding staff, concluding that such efficiency arguments belong in labor negotiations, not in a wage-law lawsuit.