Amazon.com, Inc. (NASDAQ:AMZN) Meets Employee in Court

On Wednesday morning, October 8, 2014, the Supreme Court will hear the case that Jesse Busk is bringing against Amazon.com, Inc. (NASDAQ:AMZN).

This 37 year old Amazon worker is making a claim that he needs to stand in line for a half an hour every day, after completing a 12-hour shift, so the company can conduct an anti-theft check of the employees. The complaint is that he, as well as the other employees of the Nevada- based Amazon warehouse, should be paid for this time.

Mr. Busk’s team of lawyers have said that Amazon.com, Inc. (NASDAQ:AMZN), and the involved staffing agencies, owe more than 400,000 workers over $100 million dollars in back wages.

If the employees win, the companies will be required to pay these back wages and/or change their current security practices. In addition, a victory for the workers could have a great impact on other labor campaigns, including higher wages for Facebook employees, Uber employees and bus drivers.

The defendant is this case is not Amazon.com, Inc. (NASDAQ:AMZN), but a staffing agency, Integrity Staffing Solutions. The outcome of this suit will have a direct effect on several class action lawsuits, currently pending against Amazon.com, Inc. (NASDAQ:AMZN), Apple Inc. (NASDAQ:AAPL) and other large corporations.

During 2010, two former Integrity Staffing Solutions employees sued the company for unpaid time waiting in security check points; that were required by the temporary employment agency, but ultimately came from Amazon, as their own employees go through the same security lines.

Amazon.com, Inc. (NASDAQ:AMZN) has said that employees walk through a security screen with minimal wait time.

The legal issue that arises, is how the Supreme Court will choose to define work that is considered to be an indispensable and integral part of the main activities. For instance, is the time that an employee needs to wait in line for a security search similar, to the time that they would spend walking across the parking lot, which is also an unpaid activity. Butchers, for example, get paid for the time they spend sharpening their knives, and workers at a battery factory are compensated for time spent showering, to remove harmful lead and sulfuric acid.

The staffing agency defense is that this activity, waiting in line for a company anti-theft search, is part of an employees’ normal work day. The workers, on the other hand said that the courts should focus on the fact that this activity is mandatory. Their argument is: what is going to keep employers from ordering workers to wash their supervisor’s vehicles, without pay.

Originally, the workers lost this case, but they won the appeal in California. There is no way to tell at this point, how the Supreme Court will rule, but in the past, the courts have sided with workers in other high profile labor cases.

Amazon.com, Inc. (NASDAQ:AMZN), which is 67% inst. ownership, opened the today at 316.58, and at 10:25 Eastern Daylight Time, it is holding at 316.70. The 52 week outlook ranges from 284.38 to 408.06, with a market cap of 146.22 B.