Civil Plaintiff
Amazon Will Pay Workers $8.6 Million to Settle a Decade-Long Lawsuit Over Unpaid Security Searches
The Pennsylvania Supreme Court ruled last week that Amazon must pay warehouse workers for their time spent in mandatory security checks after each shift.
Amazon will pay a total of $13.5 million in the settlement, ending a legal battle that has lasted over 10 years, Bloomberg Law reported on Monday. The highest payout claimed by an Amazon employee thus far is $5,760.
Amazon and its lawyers argued that “employees are only paid for their labor — to pack boxes, but not to stand at a security checkpoint, which does not involve labor or toil.”
The court’s 5-2 majority opinion denied this, determining that “hours worked” under Pennsylvania law includes time spent waiting for, or undergoing, Amazon’s daily bag checks.
