The Supreme Court heard arguments today in a case about whether or not Amazon employees should be paid while company security people search them after their shifts. Paid?? When being searched by company security is so fun?

I am attempting here to use sarcasm to communicate the absurd nature of this case. Yes, of course, if your employer forces you to stand in line and be searched before you leave because they think you might steal from them, you should be paid for that time. If you are doing it for your employer, and you are not doing it for yourself, voluntarily, for fun, and it is a mandatory part of your job, you should be paid for it. To the average worker, I hope that this case sounds absurd.

The workers who are suing an Amazon staffing company say they wait up to 25 minutes a day for these screenings. Here is a direct quote from the lawyer for the workers: "It's work because you are told to do it." Shocking! Outrageous! Forcing companies to pay American workers for things they are told to do? It's just a baby step to full socialism, from there. If you are a good Democrat, you may be shocked to learn that the Obama administration's Labor Department does not agree that the workers should be paid. And it does not sound like the judges are very favorably disposed to them either, because these screenings do not qualify as a "principal activity" of the job, which is, for some fucking reason, the legal standard. Via the AP:

Justice Antonin Scalia said the security check "is not indispensable to taking care of the activity in the warehouse."

"You wouldn't pay anybody just to come in and go through security," said Justice Samuel Alito.

How about: pay them, or don't make them do it.

[Photo: AP]