The California Supreme Court recently determined that employees must be paid for tasks they are regularly required to perform for a few minutes before or after their regular work hours. Troester v. Starbucks involved a class action lawsuit against Starbucks by a shift supervisor who was required, after clocking out each day, to send daily sales data to corporate headquarters, and then to set the store’s alarm, lock the door and walk co-workers to their cars. The supervisor spent four to ten minutes on those tasks each day.
In evaluating whether employers could assert a common defense under the California Labor Code used to excuse not paying for tasks that take less than 10 minutes under the Fair Labor Standards Act, the Supreme Court unanimously rejected a federal standard that allows employers to withhold additional pay. The Supreme Court held that the “de minimis” federal rule has never been adopted by California lawmakers or labor regulators; instead, the California Labor Code “contemplates that employees will be paid for all work performed.”
This decision will impact how employers conduct their businesses, and can be costly to those companies that employ many hourly workers. California employers must recognize that if they are requiring employees to regularly perform work off the clock, they must pay them even if such tasks do not take more than a few minutes to perform.