Starbucks and others must pay workers for off clock work

SUDHIN THANAWALA
California, US | July 26

Starbucks and other employers in California must pay workers for minutes they routinely spend off the clock on tasks such as locking up or setting the store alarm, the state Supreme Court ruled Thursday.

The unanimous ruling was a big victory for hourly workers in California and could prompt additional lawsuits against employers in the state.

The ruling came in a lawsuit by a Starbucks employee, Douglas Troester, who argued that he was entitled to be paid for the time he spent closing the store after he had clocked out.

Troester said he activated the store alarm, locked the front door and walked co-workers to their cars — tasks that required him to work for four to 10 additional minutes a day.

An attorney for Starbucks referred comment to the company. Starbucks did not immediately have comment.

A U.S. District Court rejected Troester’s lawsuit on the grounds that the time he spent on those tasks was minimal. But the California Supreme Court said a few extra minutes of work each day could “add up.”

Troester was seeking payment for 12 hours and 50 minutes of work over a 17-month period. At $8 an hour, that amounts to $102.67, the California Supreme Court said.

“That is enough to pay a utility bill, buy a week of groceries, or cover a month of bus fares,” Associate Justice Goodwin Liu wrote. “What Starbucks calls ‘de minimis’ is not de minimis at all to many ordinary people who work for hourly wages.”

The ruling also applies to tasks done before the workday begins, said Bryan Lazarski, an attorney in Los Angeles who handles wage claims against employers.

Lazarski said he expects the ruling to open the door to additional lawsuits by workers in similar situations as Troester. But he also expects lawsuits that “test the boundary of what this case says” to determine how much time spent doing work off the clock is enough to get paid.

The court in Thursday’s ruling said it was not closing the door on all claims by employers that the amount of additional work was too negligible.

“The court is saying, ‘We haven’t really drawn a line with regard to what is trivial and what is not trivial, but in this case, the time that the employee was not compensated was significant,’” said Veena Dubal, a labor law expert at the University of California, Hastings College of the Law.