Dive Brief:
- Under a July 15 federal court-approved settlement, Walmart agreed to pay $2.5 million to resolve allegations it failed to compensate about 81,000 hourly workers in Arizona for their time spent undergoing mandatory, pre-shift COVID-19 screening.
- Each screening took an average of 10-15 minutes, the class-action complaint in Arrison, et. al. v. Walmart alleged. Typically, workers would wait in line before their shift to have their temperatures scanned, answer questions about their health, travel and exposure to COVID-19 and, if given the OK, walk to the other end of the store to clock in, according to the complaint.
- The workers sought payment under Arizona wage law. Pursuant to the settlement, each class member will receive approximately 50% of their potential claim based on the number of weeks they worked in an Arizona Walmart store from April 10, 2020, through February 28, 2022. In return, they will release their class claims against the company. Walmart did not respond to a request for comment prior to press time.
Dive Insight:
Employers sometimes call upon workers to perform pre- or post-shift tasks for the health, safety or security of the workplace.
However, when employees go unpaid for this time, such requirements can lead to wage and hour lawsuits, which often involve class actions ending with high-priced settlements.
For example, in 2022, Apple agreed to pay $30.4 million to settle a class-action lawsuit by workers in California. The workers claimed they were entitled to wages for undergoing off-the-clock security bag checks when they left for meal breaks and after their shift ended.
California’s highest court found the workers were entitled to compensation under state law because they were “clearly under Apple’s control while awaiting, and during, the exit searches.” Specifically, Apple confined employees to the premises and warned them they could be disciplined or discharged if they didn’t submit to the bag checks, the court said.
Following the onset of COVID-19, pre-shift COVID screenings triggered a wave of new lawsuits. In 2021, for instance, a former Victoria’s Secret employee filed a class-action under California law to get paid for the time spent undergoing pre-shift temperature checks. In March, a federal district court lifted a stay in the case and let it continue.
Employees pursuing compensation under the Fair Labor Standards Act for off-the-clock work must meet a somewhat different standard, per a 2014 ruling by the U.S. Supreme Court.
In that case, the justices unanimously rejected claims by warehouse workers that the FLSA entitled them to be paid for the time they spent undergoing security bag checks during meal breaks and after clocking out. The justices said this was because the bag checks were not a “principal activity” and not “integral and indispensable” to the job the workers were hired to perform.
The workers in the Apple case also brought FLSA claims, but the court dismissed them based on the Supreme Court’s 2014 ruling.
In the context of employees seeking pay for pre-shift COVID screenings under the FLSA, the U.S. Department of Labor has weighed in on what the ruling means for them.
In a guidance, the DOL explains that under the FLSA, an employer is required to pay for all the hours worked, including the time before an employee begins their normal working hours “if the task [the employee is] required to perform is necessary for the [employee’s] work.”
In other words, a temperature check is likely to be compensable if it is “integral and indispensable” to the employee’s job, the DOL notes.
The plaintiffs in Walmart case alleged that their pre-shift COVID screenings were necessary to their principal work and “to ensure a safe environment for Walmart’s customers.” In its order approving the settlement, the court said it agreed with their counsel that their recovery was “substantial ... particularly considering the percentage of recovery in similar cases within this circuit.”
Correction: A previous version of this story misstated the settlement class period. It began April 10, 2020.
