February 27, 2025
At the end of the workday, Amazon warehouse workers are required to clock out and then go through an anti-theft security screening process as they exit the building. The unpaid security screening can take anywhere from three to fifteen minutes. While that may not seem like much in one day, over the year, the cumulative amount of unpaid time adds up, cheating workers out of wages for the required screenings. Amazon warehouse workers have sued for their unpaid wages, and their class action lawsuit, representing nearly 24,000 workers, is before the U.S. District Court for the District of Maryland. The federal judge in the case has also asked the Supreme Court of Maryland to rule on a question related to Maryland law that will be relevant in deciding the workers’ case: Can the federal de minimis rule, which would allow employers to not pay employees for small amounts of time worked, be applied to claims brought under the Maryland Wage Payment and Collection Law and the Maryland Wage and Hour Law? In January, the Public Justice Center, National Employment Law Project, and the Baltimore Action Legal Team filed an amicus brief in Martinez v. Amazon arguing that adopting the federal de minimis doctrine would be inconsistent with Maryland’s wage laws and would condone wage theft.
Authored by PJC Murnaghan Appellate Advocacy Fellow Sahar Atassi, the brief describes the impact wage theft has on hourly workers, their families, and communities. Wage theft occurs when employers fail to pay workers fully for their labor, including failing to pay the minimum, promised, or overtime wage; misclassifying employees as independent contractors; taking unauthorized deductions from paychecks; or not paying for all hours worked. This practice is widespread in Maryland and across the country, costing U.S. workers upwards of $50 billion per year, and likely more, given how underreported the problem is. Wage theft increases poverty, forcing workers to make difficult decisions about whether they will pay for rent, groceries, medicine, transportation, utilities, or other necessities. These burdens fall especially hard on communities who have historically been subject to greater exploitation at work, including women, Black and Latine people, and immigrants, with employers assuming that they are less likely to complain out of fear of retaliation, like firing or deportation.
Companies build wage theft into their business practices to increase profits, particularly in low-wage industries like retail, construction, food services, and health care. This practice results in unfair competition for law-abiding businesses, loss of tax revenue for local governments, loss of income for businesses where workers would have spent money, and an increase in reliance on public assistance. And employers often get away with wage theft because workers who might want to take action face complicated legal processes and under-resourced government enforcement agencies.
The brief also explains how adopting the federal de minimis rule in Maryland would incentivize employers to adopt policies that maximize profits at the expense of workers. The brief describes how Amazon’s unpaid security screenings are consistent with other profit-first practices that take a toll on Amazon workers, including low wages, high performance quotas, and constant surveillance of employee activities. Employers engage in wage theft because, with limited enforcement of wage laws, they reason that they are less likely to get caught. We argue that imposing the federal de minimis standard on Maryland wage laws would undermine their purpose of ensuring fair pay practices and shielding against abuse. Maryland’s wage laws must remain strong to hold employers accountable and ensure workers receive the wages they have earned.
Thank you to PJC paralegals Kelsey Carlson and David Reische, former PJC attorney Lucy Zhou, and Administrative Coordinator Becky Reynolds for their assistance with the brief.
