They should not be able to “clock out” until after such security checks.
[1] https://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/other/congressional...!
(Scroll down) https://news.gallup.com/poll/1600/congress-public.aspx
2. The article says "the screening takes around 25 minutes to complete", which is not typical in retail.
0.00hr. You should always be paid for your time unless that person agrees to volunteer it.
Amazon agrees with you... they contend that the screening doesn't actually take this long. I'm not clear on how a question of fact like this can be in dispute unless we are arguing over definitions.
> I've done the amazon fulfillment center tour and seen employees check in for different shifts, it does not take 25 minutes to go through the screening process.
No one is claiming that the check-in process takes a long time. The check-out process is the one where the employees are screened for theft, and that is where the employees claim they must wait (unpaid) for a long time.
> There's no way Amazon with its efficiency mantra would let this happen knowing how it eventually impacts the bottom line.
I find that completely unpersuasive. The courts have just told Amazon that they DON'T HAVE TO PAY for this time. So it isn't inefficient for them to allow it to take lots of time. It doesn't affect Amazon's bottom line until the point where it becomes difficult for Amazon to hire any workers.
The headline is a little misleading. The appellate court was letting the case vs. Amazon go to trial under state labor law; the Supreme Court decided not to intervene, so the dispute is still being litigated.
(Previously, the Supreme Court said time being screening doesn't require compensation under Federal law).
How do workers trying to leave the warehouse affect their bottom line? They are no longer on the clock so it is no longer Amazon's problem. It is a big problem for workers who have to waste 5-15% of their free time on this obligatory work task.
I'd be skeptical of how representative a tour is.
> seen employees check in for different shifts, it does not take 25 minutes to go through the screening process
Check-in isn't the situation in dispute.
Looks like they had similar issues?
https://www.plbsh.com/jury-awards-walmart-employees-6-millio...
It was just horse shit to get free labour out of people, but that seems to be the industry.
[0]: https://content.next.westlaw.com/6-508-0673?transitionType=D...
This is more akin to being locked on the company premises after work has terminated unpaid but unable to leave. If they can't do a bag check in 5 minutes and leave amazon should hire more checkers to do that work or compensate the employees for the time lost.
Perhaps the proper thing to assert is imprisonment instead of wage theft.
Regardless of the philosophy, what do you think of the legal basis?
And no, it’s not acceptable to expect them to simply resign. Changing jobs can also incur significant costs on people, which can allow employers to exploit their position of power over employees.
When an employment contract talks about working hours, it should not be necessary to refer to small print or seemingly unrelated clauses to know what that means. It should have a straightforward and unsurprising meaning. Employers should not be able to make up surprising and counterintuitive definitions of things like working hours, and manipulate those in their favour. In general employees should not be required to understand special exceptions from standard expected practice, unless there are specific well understood and communicated reasons that require it.
On the face of it, I don't think this case meets that sort of standard. In general I am in favour of a high degree of flexibility in the form of employment contracts. My own working hours and the expectations of my job are somewhat unusual. I work highly variable hours and I am frequently on call. I do get paid for the hours I work though.
However I do think this is a reasonable area for legislation because I think that's the only way to ensure employees are not abused, and in this case I think it's pretty clear Amazon did not signal this clearly to prospective employees and is abusing it's position of power over them in an unreasonable way.
If I'm not mistaken, airline flight attendants don't get paid until the door shuts, bet none of you that fly regularly are outraged about that.
And as someone that worked in a facility where I had to park off site, ride a bus unpaid, clear security unpaid, ride another bus unpaid then I could clock in (on time, 1 second over was late which was penalized) then had to repeat it in reverse... I was more than happy to have the job and quite fine not getting paid doing that.
Every prison guard, anyone working at UPS/USPS/FedEx sort facility, etc (not to mention people in state and federal court houses, the white house, the CIA, the FBI etc) go through this same thing every day.
One is semi-optional, the other is mandatory.
If someone can make money by fraud, that money is not justification to allow fraud. The US economy relies on dependable contacts.
Which law? "The Law" as an ideal, is impartial. That's irrelevant. In practice, applied law (and the cousin enforced law) leads to biased results, favoring the wealthy and the status quo while remaining "impartial".
We shouldn't let a defeatist attitude discourage attempts at improvement.
I'm very libertarian- but at the end of the day I will always support the government authority to punish theft. And a failure to pay employees the agreed upon rate is theft.
This isnt about being caught- the evidence is clear as day and was presented in court.
This is about a failure of our legal system to protect basic rights of a laborer to be paid the agreed upon rate.
Why are people so quick to defend the powerful?
John Steinbeck wasn't wrong.
As such, we have leaders and followers.
By definition of leaders and followers, most people will be followers, whether for genetic or environmental reasons.
Followers will always support those who are leaders. In our current society, that would mean the powerful.
If you don't believe me, look at behavioral sciences. Most people will shock someone to death just because an authority said so (yes the Millgram experiments were biased, but the results aren't completely invalidated by that)
Packing an individual box takes minutes. So it's a question of capacity, and it's pretty binary. If they have enough capacity then a large majority of items can ship within a couple hours. If they don't have enough capacity then the 90th percentile shipping time becomes indefinite/never. A situation where packaging takes an extra day, end of story, is unlikely and unstable.
And I'd say that some robots are R&D, so not having money for them has no effect on shipping times, and the rest are a cost-saving measure, so they'll always have the money.
It's not like Amazon is running a zero sum balance sheet here. They have profits this could take out of and maintain all their service and speed.
I'm with you though, it costs the consumer nothing.
Framing it that way, of course people would respond negatively to price increases.
"Amazon workers now paid for all the time they're clocked in, prices may be affected" is a lot more sympathetic to workers.
Please refer to this documentary about Walmart. They're not just anti-labor.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wal-Mart:_The_High_Cost_of_Low...
While Walmart didn't invent bad behavior, they're pretty good at it.
If I wanted to take law into my own hands I might as well go to the local gangsters and smugglers.