I disagree with the Supreme Court decision. Employees shouldn't have to wait in lines to be checked for stolen merchandise, unpaid. That's bullshit imo. But it's hyperbole to say they're being locked up without pay. The bathroom thing, I'm not sold on, it sounds like melodrama though.
I disagreed with the SCOTUS decision as well.
Win some, lose some.
But you’ll drive yourself crazy ranting and raving over the lost battles of yesteryear. Adapt or die. Move the fuck forward.
I disagree with the Supreme Court decision. Employees shouldn't have to wait in lines to be checked for stolen merchandise, unpaid. That's bullshit imo. But it's hyperbole to say they're being locked up without pay. The bathroom thing, I'm not sold on, it sounds like melodrama though.
It might be worth a quick look back at the details of that case (9-0 decision) before the Overton Window is affixed right over "shitting in cans" and "locked up without pay."
We had some good discussion on this case back in 14 on the DCF, IIRC. Too bad that's lost to us, I guess. It came up again around here, when Kath started having a hissy about Amazon "stealing" from its employees.
They put these decisions on the internet for us nowadays, and the MHF is searchable still, and we can go back and check them out anytime we like.
I could have just as easily used some other brand name in my random list; I could have just have easily said "overstock.com" rather than "Amazon."
One never knows which shiny object is going to get the jaws a-wagging on wild tangents around here.
Anyway, the Amazon SCOTUS case is another of those McDonald's coffee myths that has grown somehow far beyond its boundaries.
It was a VERY narrow case, decided 9-0 by SCOTUS, interpreting a 1947 federal statute werein Congress decided they would be the ones deciding when Joe Sixpack's workday starts and ends on every square inch of the USA, as a matter of federal law. I think SCOTUS took it up at all just to resolve a split in authority among the Courts of Appeal, as a result of yet another nutty 9th Circuit decision in the case.
A much more interesting case would be one where the SCOTUS could somehow explain to us where in the blue fuck Congress has any sniff of authority to do *that*.
Kath wrote:You speak in riddles, sometimes, Fife. What is your point, please?
No riddles. I'm just trying to add some facts to the discussion of the Amazon warehouse FLSA case, since it has become a thing in this thread now, for some unknown reason.
My snark, if it could be called that, was in reference to how my off-handed reference to the Amazon brand in an entirely unrelated matter led to a few pages of bashing Amazon as some kind of extra-special corporate evil-doer just because it got sued by some blood-sucking class-action shop for doing what essentially every business with a security gate does.
Fife wrote:
Anyway, in what way is the opinion inconsistent with the Portal-to-Portal Act and what Congress intended in its words in Act?
Because 30 minutes daily is not incidental. Because it is directly related to the business's profit.
The firm's profit is entirely unrelated to the contract between the firm and the employee (unless the contract provides otherwise); but the main point is that the Portal-to-Portal Act is ENTIRELY unrelated to the firm's profits.
Let's just go the contextual way. Here's that evil, nasty woman, and corporate whore Justice Sotomayor, spitting out her dumb anarchist filth. You guys show me where she goes off the rails. Should be like shooting fish in a barrel for you all.
I concur in the Court’s opinion, and write separately only to explain my understanding of the standards the Court applies.
The Court reaches two critical conclusions. First, the Court confirms that compensable “‘principal’” activities “‘includ[e] . . . those closely related activities which are indispensable to [a principal activity’s] performance,’” ante, at 6 (quoting 29 CFR §790.8(c)(2013)), and holds that the required security screenings here were not “integral and indispensable” to another principal activity the employees were employed to perform, ante, at 7. I agree. As both Department of Labor regulations and our precedent make clear, an activity is “indispensable” to another, principal activity only when an employee could not dispense with it without impairing his ability to perform the principal activity safely and effectively. Thus, although a battery plant worker might, for example, perform his principal activities without donning proper protective gear, he could not do so safely, see Steiner v. Mitchell, 350 U. S. 247, 250–253 (1956); likewise, a butcher might be able to cut meat without having sharpened his knives, but he could not do so effectively, see Mitchell v. King Packing Co., 350 U. S. 260, 262–263 (1956); accord, 29 CFR §790.8(c). Here, by contrast, the security screenings were not “integral and indispensable” to the employees’ other principal activities in this sense. The screenings may, as the Ninth Circuit observed below, have been in some way related to the work that the employees performed in the warehouse, see 713 F. 3d 525, 531 (2013), but the employees could skip the screenings altogether without the safety or effectiveness of their principal activities being substantially impaired, see ante, at 7.
Second, the Court holds also that the screenings were not themselves “‘principal . . . activities’” the employees were “‘employed to perform.’” Ibid. (quoting 29 U. S. C. §254(a)(1)). On this point, I understand the Court’s analysis to turn on its conclusion that undergoing security screenings was not itself work of consequence that the employees performed for their employer. See ante, at 7. Again, I agree. As the statute’s use of the words “preliminary” and “postliminary” suggests, §254(a)(2), and as our precedents make clear, the Portal-to-Portal Act of 1947 is primarily concerned with defining the beginning and end of the workday. See IBP, Inc. v. Alvarez, 546 U. S. 21, 34–37 (2005). It distinguishes between activities that are essentially part of the ingress and egress process, on the one hand, and activities that constitute the actual “work of consequence performed for an employer,” on the other hand. 29 CFR §790.8(a); see also ibid. (clarifying that a principal activity need not predominate over other activities, and that an employee could be employed to perform multiple principal activities). The security screenings at issue here fall on the “preliminary . . . or postliminary” side of this line. 29 U. S. C. §254(a)(2). The searches were part of the process by which the employees egressed their place of work, akin to checking in and out and waiting in line to do so—activities that Congress clearly deemed to be preliminary or postlimininary. See S. Rep. No. 48, 80th Cong., 1st Sess., 47 (1947); 29 CFR §790.7(g). Indeed, as the Court observes, the Department of Labor reached the very same conclusion regarding similar security screenings shortly after the Portal-to-Portal Act was adopted, see ante, at 7–8, and we owe deference to that determination, see Christensen v. Harris County, 529 U. S. 576, 587 (2000).
Because I understand the Court’s opinion to be consistent with the foregoing, I join it.
Amazon offers a job, at their location, with their screening measures. Nothing hidden or tricky about that, as far as I can tell. If I'm wrong about that, tell me.
Hamilton is free to quit his job at Captain Hook and throw away his uniform and take the Amazon job for the stated wage at the state location, .... or not. Amazon doesn't have to pay him extra for whatever his commute time is, or for his bus fare, or for his gas. The compensation Brad decides to accept, if he does, has to cover for him, as an individual, making an individual choice, if the wage is enough to pay him for his time getting to and from (and out of) work. If Amazon tricks him or cheats him on that deal, sue their balls off and make them a pariah in the marketplace. It's a free country, on paper.
I'm not sure how that changes anything. I disagree that they should only be compensated for their "principle" job activities. They're at work, they can't go home because the boss is asking them to perform some task.
Postby Speaker to Animals » Fri Aug 31, 2018 11:03 am
Well, no. They certainly are not "cool with it". They took it all the way to the Supreme Court, wanting to be paid for their time being locked in a fucking room.
Fucking ridiculous. DB can fuck right the fuck off with that. Most Americans do not want to live in a society where what Amazon gets away with is the norm.
Last edited by Speaker to Animals on Fri Aug 31, 2018 11:04 am, edited 1 time in total.
I read a comment from a board earlier today that said, if we want to get rid of the Deep State all we'd have to do is a Drone Strike on McCain's Funeral.
