Federal Court Rules COVID Screenings Non-Compensable Work Time

by Adam Hudoba

A federal district court in the Northern District of Illinois recently ruled that COVID screening activities were not compensable work time. This decision provides clarification on whether employers need to compensate for COVID screenings.

In Johnson v. Amazon.com Services, LLC, Amazon’s warehouse employees’ job duties ordinarily included moving boxes, stacking packages, and loading boxes. No. 23 C 685, 2023 WL 8475658, at *1 (N.D. Ill. Dec. 7, 2023). During the COVID pandemic, Amazon implemented a 10-15 minute pre-work screening process for its warehouse workers that included temperature checks and health questioning. The workers believed their time spent participating in these screenings was compensable. Amazon disagreed and the workers sued.

Under the Fair Labor Standards Act, employers are required to pay each employee for his or her time spent on preliminary or postliminary activities “integral and indispensable” to the principal activity the employee was employed to perform. See 29 U.S.C. § 254(a)(2). The Illinois Minimum Wage Law shares the language of the FLSA, so courts treat the two equally.

Agreeing with Amazon, the court found that the COVID screenings were not integral or indispensable to the functioning of the warehouse generally.

In reaching this conclusion, the court relied on the United States Supreme Court precedent. In Integrity Staffing Solutions, Inc. v. Busk, 574 U.S. 27 (2014), for instance, the court found that meatpackers sharpening knives was an integral and indispensable part of their job. However, the time spent by meat-processing plant workers waiting for the opportunity to dress in protective gear was not—rather, it was “two steps removed” from their ordinary duties on the assembly line.

Furthermore, the time warehouse workers spent undergoing post-shift security screenings (i.e., to check whether they were stealing) was no

t part of their principal activity of retrieving products from warehouse shelves and packaging them for shipment.

The Supreme Court additionally ruled non-compensable a pre-shift search of employees in a “rocket-powder plant” when they were searched “for matches, spark producing devices such as cigarette lighters, and other items which have a direct bearing on the safety of the employees.”

The Johnson court found that COVID screenings are akin to the security screenings for theft described above. It reasoned that, while these types of screenings enable a business to function more efficiently or safely, they are not necessary for the business to function on any given day; and, therefore, they are not compensable.

Whether COVID and similar health-related screening time is compensable has been controversial, so the Johnson decision provides some welcome clarity. However, the case has been appealed, and there is no telling if the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals will concur. Accordingly, employers must still carefully consider whether pre-work health screenings are compensable work time.