Apple and Amazon's Unpaid Security Checks Face a New Challenge in State Courts

Last month, when the Supreme Court ruled unanimously against workers suing an Amazon warehouse contractor, the e-commerce giant wasn’t the only winner. That Integrity Staffing Solutions v. Busk decision—declaring that time spent waiting to go through security lines wasn’t “integral and essential” to warehouse work, and so workers didn’t have to be paid for it—also offered grounds for other companies to get employees’ allegations dismissed. That’s already started to happen—but companies still aren’t in the clear.

“Busk obviously has limited the scope of security check claims that can be brought, especially under federal law,” says attorney Brett Gallaway, who represents Apple Store employees currently suing to get paid for their daily wait time. “And by ‘limit,’ I mean severely truncate.” Gallaway and his colleagues recently dropped their allegations that Apple’s refusal to pay for workers’ wait time violated the federal Fair Labor Standards Act. (Other companies that have been hit with similar lawsuits include J.C. Penney, CVS Health, and TJX Cos.) Still, Gallaway says his clients, and others like them, retain a different recourse: state law, starting with California.