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posted by martyb on Sunday July 29 2018, @07:02AM   Printer-friendly
from the all-work-and-no-pay-makes-Jack-a-litigious-boy dept.

Arthur T Knackerbracket has found the following (paywalled) story:

July 26, 2018

Starbucks Corp. must pay employees for off-the-clock work such as closing and locking stores, the California Supreme Court ruled on Thursday in a decision that could have broad implications for companies that employ workers paid by the hour across the state.

The decision is a departure from a federal standard that gives employers greater leeway to deny workers’ compensation for short tasks, such as putting on a uniform, that are performed before they clock in or after they clock out.

More details are available from pbs.org:

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.”

-- submitted from IRC


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  • (Score: 2) by bzipitidoo on Monday July 30 2018, @06:01PM (1 child)

    by bzipitidoo (4388) on Monday July 30 2018, @06:01PM (#714852) Journal

    >> The pushing they do threatens to pervert college into mere vocational training.

    > It damned well needs to be

    No, and that so many people could think otherwise points up one of the biggest failures of current education. Students study all kinds of science all through K-12, and yet many totally miss the boat about the foundations of science. A large part of that is the fault of educators, for not emphasizing it enough. They have a lamentable tendency to gloss over these crucial foundational understandings, to dive directly into the gory details in the hopes that if the students will eventually figure out the big picture themselves. Often, those hopes are in vain.

    > everyone told them college would land them an white collar job

    The point is a better life. A good job is only one part of that puzzle. There's an infinite amount of bullshit in the universe, and education is crucial for developing the critical thinking skills and habits necessary to sort through it. It's more, much more, than just memorizing a bunch of facts. One of the saddest things to see is ignorant people screwing up their lives or worse, their children's lives, out of fear of nonsense. For instance, the anti-vaxxers who put their children through horrible childhood diseases, perhaps scarring them for life, or even killing them, because they've stuffed themselves full of quackery and conspiracy nonsense over vaccines. Some people still go for palm readings and seances, sort of believe in ghosts, and other superstitious nonsense. There's also prejudice. Education, especially college education, can really open eyes, get young people out of the echo chambers, where they can see for themselves that the world is a more diverse and less vicious and scary place than they were taught.

    Education can be one of the most rewarding and fun things to do, when free of the pressure to pass tests and earn grades.

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  • (Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Monday July 30 2018, @06:42PM

    ...education is crucial for developing the critical thinking skills and habits necessary to sort through it.

    No, it's not. I give you our current higher education system that is turning out indoctrinated little sexist, racist, and otherwise biggoted drones incapable of the tiniest amount of thought that goes against the approved narrative en masse while the welders, electricians, and plumbers are calling bullshit. Either education is not in fact the key or our colleges are doing the opposite of educating.

    Education can be one of the most rewarding and fun things to do, when free of the pressure to pass tests and earn grades.

    I agree but you need a formal setting and a six digit debt right out of highschool like tanks need training wheels. If college cannot give you much better odds at a decent living (It doesn't. The improvement is small and decreasing.), it is a luxury and it's cocktacularly stupid to acquire six digits of debt for a luxury unless you already make seven digits or more a year.

    --
    My rights don't end where your fear begins.