![]() The issue is racial bias and that can occur anywhere at anytime - boycotting Starbucks will not shield us from some similar actions by a store employee elsewhere. Many are calling for a boycott of Starbucks but that simply isn’t the answer. The company’s CEO has since apologized to the two men and requested to meet with them. This may involve restructuring closing procedures to allow employees to clock out after final tasks, such as setting a security alarm, are completed, or even adding one minute automatically to the end of closing shifts.Ĭontact us if you are interested in a review of your timekeeping policies and procedures in light of the Troester ruling.Two Black men in Philadelphia were arrested in a Starbucks for the crime of waiting for a friend. Where there is opportunity to capture additional minutes of time spent working, employers are expected to do it. Accordingly, the Troester decision sends a clear signal to employers to closely review their operations relating to employee activity before clocking in or after clocking out. While the Court was purposefully not explicit regarding exactly when such time becomes compensable, the opinion is clear enough that time amounting to “minutes” of work must be compensated. The Court was faced with several examples of incredibly brief work-related activity, lasting seconds, rather than minutes, such as “ an employee reading an e-mail notification of a shift change during off-work hours.” Instead of creating a rule which would address every second of work-related activity, the Court left “open whether there are wage claims involving employee activities that are so irregular or brief in duration that it would not be reasonable to require employers to compensate employees for the time spent on them.” ![]() The Court did, however, limit its ruling to the facts before it relating to Troester. That is, the Court appeared to bless a system where one to two minutes of compensation would be added to the beginning or end of a shift, regardless of any confirmation that the time was actually worked. a fair rounding policy” is a tenable solution. It also posited that the addition of a reasonable estimate of work time for before or end of shift activities “through surveys, time studies, or. The Court pointed to smartphones, tablets, or other devices, which may be far superior in capturing time worked than a stationary “punch” clock – the standard timekeeping device when the de minimis rule was created. An employer may be able to customize and adapt available time tracking tools or develop new ones when no off-the-shelf product meets its needs. Moreover, as noted, technological advances may help with tracking small amounts of time. One such alternative, which it appears Starbucks eventually resorted to here, was to restructure the work so that employees would not have to work before or after clocking out. Mployers are in a better position than employees to devise alternatives that would permit the tracking of small amounts of regularly occurring work time. Notably, the Court was not swayed by arguments relating to the administrative difficulties of tracking small amounts of time worked before and after regularly scheduled hours, rejecting the notion that “when it is difficult to keep track of time worked, the employee alone should bear the burden of that difficulty.” The Court explained that: The Court found no room for the application of the federal de minimis doctrine in California law, where the Labor Code and Industrial Welfare Commission Wage Orders simply require payment for “all hours worked” or “all work performed.” Plainly, California law is more protective than a “federal rule permitting employers under some circumstances to require employees to work as much as 10 minutes a day without compensation.” Further, “othing in the language of the wage orders or Labor Code shows an intent to incorporate the federal de minimis rule. The Supreme Court held that under California law, the above-described activities were compensable and Starbucks could be liable for them. He then locked the door, which took 15 seconds to ‘a couple minutes,’ and walked his coworkers to their cars, which took 35 to 45 seconds. And Plaintiff testified that it took 30 seconds to walk out of the store. Once he set the alarm, Plaintiff needed to exit the store within one minute to avoid triggering the alarm. Moreover, he did so within two minutes on 90 percent of the shifts and within five minutes on every shift. Plaintiff activated the alarm approximately one minute after he clocked out.
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