Unpaid Security Screening Time: How to Count the Minutes Into Your Hours and Overtime (Warehouse and Plant Shifts)
A warehouse shift ends at 6:00 p.m. You clock out at 6:00. You walk out the door at 6:18, after a line at the metal detector and a bag check. Those 18 minutes are not on your pay stub, and over a year of long shifts they add up.
This post is about counting that time and about the one question that decides whether it is owed: which law applies to you. It uses invented numbers. It does not tell you what you are owed. It shows you how to count so you can ask the right person.
What federal law says (and why it surprises people)
Under the federal Fair Labor Standards Act as amended by the Portal-to-Portal Act, employers do not have to pay for activities that are "preliminary to or postliminary to" the principal activities you are employed to perform (29 U.S.C. 254). In 2014 the U.S. Supreme Court applied that to warehouse workers in Integrity Staffing Solutions, Inc. v. Busk. The workers said the end-of-shift anti-theft screening took up to about 25 minutes a day. The Court unanimously held that waiting for and going through that screening was not compensable under the federal law, because it was not an "integral and indispensable" part of the work they were hired to do (opinion).
That is a federal minimum, not a ceiling. A state can set its own rule for what counts as paid time.
What some states say
- California. In Frlekin v. Apple Inc. (2020), the California Supreme Court held that time employees spend waiting for and undergoing required exit searches is compensable "hours worked" under California law, because the employer controls that time (summary).
- Pennsylvania. In 2021 the Pennsylvania Supreme Court held that required security screening at an Amazon warehouse can count as hours worked under the state's wage law (news report).
Other states have been in court over the same question, and the answers are not uniform. Some courts have ruled the other way. The rule depends on your state, your job and sometimes on whether a union contract covers it. Use this post to count. Use your state labor department, your contract or a wage-and-hour attorney to find out which rule applies.
Step 1: Count your screening minutes per shift
Write down, for a couple of weeks, the time you clock out and the time you actually walk out. The gap is the number you need. Use your own timestamps (a phone note works), not a number someone else posted.
Step 2: Multiply by your shifts per week
Weekly screening time = minutes per shift x shifts per week
Made-up example A: 15 minutes per shift, 4 shifts a week. 15 x 4 = 60 minutes, or 1 hour a week.
Made-up example B: 20 minutes per shift, 3 shifts a week. 20 x 3 = 60 minutes, also 1 hour a week.
Step 3: Turn it into hours per year
Yearly screening time = weekly hours x weeks worked
1 hour x 50 weeks = 50 hours a year. That is the same as five 10-hour shifts spent in line.
Step 4: Price it, in two different ways
Which way depends on your week. Made-up wage: $18 an hour.
| Your week | Hours already paid | Screening added | If the time counts, paid at |
|---|---|---|---|
| A: 4 x 10-hour shifts | 40 | 1 hour | overtime: $18 x 1.5 = $27 |
| B: 3 x 12-hour shifts | 36 | 1 hour | straight time: $18 (36 + 1 = 37, still under 40) |
- Week A: 1 hour x $27 = $27 a week, and $27 x 50 weeks = $1,350 a year.
- Week B: 1 hour x $18 = $18 a week, and $18 x 50 weeks = $900 a year.
Why the difference: in a week that is already at 40 paid hours, any extra counted hour is an overtime hour. In a 36-hour week there is room for it at the normal rate. That is the ordinary overtime rule applied to extra counted time, not anything special about screening. If your pay has other components, see the overtime recalculation post. If your state has daily overtime, a long shift can change the picture again; see 12-hour shifts in daily-overtime states.
If your state does not count the time, the answer in every row is $0. Counting is still worth it: it shows you what the policy costs you in time, whatever the law says.
A different question: screening during an unpaid meal break
Everything above is about screening before or after the shift. If you must go through a check in the middle of the workday, two other rules come in.
- The federal "continuous workday" idea says the time between the start of your first principal activity and the end of your last one is generally counted as hours worked (29 CFR 790.6).
- An unpaid meal period only comes off the clock if you are "completely relieved from duty" (29 CFR 785.19). If a 30-minute meal is really 18 minutes after the line at the exit, ask whether that period still qualifies.
That is a separate question from the end-of-shift case, and a good one for your payroll office or a wage-and-hour attorney.
What about "a few minutes"? The de minimis rule
Federal rules let employers ignore "insubstantial or insignificant" time of "a few seconds or minutes" that is hard to record (29 CFR 785.47). The same rule says an employer may not arbitrarily ignore regular working time, and it cites a case holding that 10 minutes a day is not de minimis. Whether that matters for your screening time depends on whether the time counts as work in the first place, which is the question above.
A checklist before you ask
- Write down clock-out and walk-out times for 10 shifts and take the average.
- Note when the screening happens: before the shift, after it or mid-shift. They are different questions.
- Find your state's rule. Search your state labor department's site for "hours worked".
- Check your contract or handbook for a clause about paid exit time.
- Do the arithmetic both ways (straight time and overtime) so you know the range.
- Take the numbers, not just the total, to payroll, your union rep or an attorney.
Every figure in this post is invented for illustration. This is general information, not legal or pay advice. The answer depends on your state, your contract and your exact facts.
If you want to see how many hours your rotation puts on the calendar before any extra minutes, Duty Pals, a shift calendar for Android, is on Google Play, and the shift pattern calculator on this site lays out common rotations.
Sources: 29 U.S.C. 254 · Integrity Staffing Solutions v. Busk (2014) · 29 CFR 790.6 · 29 CFR 785.19 · 29 CFR 785.47 · state cases via secondary summaries linked above · all dollar amounts and minutes are invented for illustration