Amazon Warehouse Workers Forced to Wait at Security Checkpoints Without Getting Paid

[xchrom]

http://www.alternet.org/labor/amazon-warehouse-workers-forced-wait-security-checkpoints-without-getting-paid



After spending 12 hours a day packing boxes, Amazon warehouse workers must wait at security checkpoints for up to 25 minutes without pay before going home, the Huffington Post reports.

Nevada workers Jesse Busk and Laurie Castro are leading a class-action lawsuit against Integrity Staffing Solutions, which finds workers for Amazon, for uncompensated time spent in lines aimed at curtailing employee theft. Amazon was not named in the suit. The suit also claimed wages for time spent walking to and from lunch breaks in facilities described as “the size of seven football fields.” Attorneys representing the workers estimate that 100,000 warehouse workers are owed “more than $100 million in back wages and penalties for time spent on security lines,” the Morning Call reports.

"You're just standing there, and everyone wants to get home," Busk told the Huffington Post. "It was not comfortable. There could be hundreds of people waiting at the end of the shift."

In 2011, a federal court tossed out Busk and Castro’s claim, but last month a federal appeals court partially reversed that decision. In an opinion, a judge states that the “plaintiffs have stated a plausible claim for relief” because the security checkpoints are “necessary to employees’ primary work as warehouse employees and done for Integrity’s benefit.” The opinion does not reverse the decision on claimed wages for lunch trips.

[Initech]

1. How is this not slavery again?

[Mariana]

2. I think the so-called reasoning is

that they can quit. They may become homeless if they quit, and they may starve, but no one's going to chase them down and drag them back in chains if they don't show up for work. Therefore, it's voluntary, therefore, it's not slavery.



If the company is so fucking worried about theft, they can start by not stealing their employees' time. I'd love to see prison terms for employers that do this shit.

[Initech]

3. If only.

I'd love to see some of these douchebag employers locked away for treating workers like garbage.

[Politicalboi]

4. Theft can happen at ANY job

Why is Amazon's shit more protected than any other store warehouse? I worked at a Rite-Aid warehouse a few years back, and they never did shit like this. I was let go because I was 3% too slow in the dept they kept me in, but I kicked ass in others, but they didn't move me.