1. The employees in this case pointed to the fact that Integrity could have greatly reduced the amount of time for screening to just a few minutes by employing more personnel and metal detectors. Should the Court have given more weight to that fact? Why or why not?

2. What did the Court identify as the error made by the Court of Appeals? Why was it important?

3. Is this decision consistent with the objectives of the FLSA? Does it protect workers from unfair and harsh treatment by an employer? Should Congress or the Department of Labor define work hours more care-fully?  How would you craft a definition?

Integrity Staffing Solutions, Inc., (Integrity) provides warehouse staffing to Amazon throughout the United States. Jesse Busk (Busk) worked as an hourly employee of Integrity at ware-houses in Nevada. As a warehouse employee, Busk retrieved products from the shelves and packaged those products for delivery to Amazon customers. Integrity required its employees to undergo a security screening before leaving the warehouse at the end of each day. During this screening, employees removed items such as wallets, keys, and belts from their persons and passed through metal detectors. 

In 2010, Busk and another employee filed suit against Integrity for alleged violations of the FLSA and Nevada labor laws, alleging that they were entitled to compensation under the FLSA for time spent waiting to undergo and actually undergoing the security screenings. They alleged that such time amounted to roughly 25 minutes each day and the screenings were conducted to prevent employee theft and thus occurred solely for the benefit of the employers and their customers. The trial court ruled in favor of Integrity, but the Court of Appeals reversed. The Court of Appeals held that the screenings were compensable as they were required by the employer, necessary to the employees’ primary work as warehouse employees, and done for Integrity benefit. Integrity appealed.

The U.S. Supreme Court reversed the Court of Appeals’s decision and found in favor of Integrity. The Court ruled that the lower court erred in focusing on whether the activity was required by the employer. Instead, the appropriate test was based on whether or not the activities were the principal activity or activities which the employee was employed to perform. Since Integrity did not employ its workers to undergo security screenings, but to retrieve products from warehouse shelves and package those products for shipment to Amazon customers, the activities did not qualify as compensable under the FLSA. Moreover, the activity did not meet the “integral and indispensable” standard.

“The security screenings also were not ‘integral and indispensable’ to the employees’ duties as warehouse workers. [A]n activity is not integral and indispensable to an employee’s principal activities unless it is an intrinsic element of those activities and one with which the employee cannot dispense if he is to perform those activities. The screenings were not an intrinsic element of retrieving products from warehouse shelves or packaging them for shipment. And Integrity Staffing could have eliminated the screenings altogether without impairing the employees’ ability to complete their work.”