After years with little contact with worker-related cases, either in previous GOP administrations or his two years as a federal appellate judge, new U.S. Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts faced two worker-related cases in his first 10 days on the High Court bench--including the very first case he handled. At issue in that case was whether IBP, the big beef processor, could get away with not paying its workers for the time they spent walking to and from their meat-cutting lines after donning and before doffing the protective gear they need on the job. Roberts and his Supreme Court colleagues heard arguments on that issue on Oct. 3.
On Oct. 12, the justices wrestled with free speech rights in an intra-office dispute involving former Los Angeles DA Gil Garcetti and a staffer who charged his bosses with retaliation, allegedly for a memo on a drug arrest. The question the court tackled was whether a public worker’s free speech rights cover internal communications.
The two cases are important because the decisions on them, not expected until later this year at the earliest, could afford the first evidence on how Roberts will view worker issues now that he is one of the nine justices who has ultimate authority over them, rather than just an appellate court judge charged with interpreting prior Supreme Court and other court rulings, or an advocate for anti-worker GOP regimes.
In the IBP case, Gabriel Alvarez, Arnulfo Gutierrez, Pedro Hernandez, Maria Martinez, Ramon Moreno and Ismael Rodriquez led a class action suit against IBP’s decision not to pay them for “walking time” to their meat-cutting line, after they put on their protective gear, at its Pasco, Wash., plant, or for identical “walking time” from the end of their shifts to their lockers, to take it off. The company says it’s one to three minutes each day, each way for each worker in the plant.
To protect themselves, workers wear “a sanitary outer garment, a plastic hardhat, a hair net, ear plugs, a face shield, goggles, gloves, liquid repelling sleeves, apron and leggings, safety boots or shoes, and a weight belt,” the case papers say. “‘Knife users’ may wear additional items such as mesh metal aprons, leggings, vests, sleeves, and gloves, as well as plexiglass arm guards and Kevlar gloves,” they add.
Not only are workers not paid for “walking time,” they’re not paid for clothes-changing time--donning and doffing the gear--either, according to the contract between their Teamsters local and IBP, a Tyson Foods subsidiary, the case said.
The case started in 1998 and it covers workers from 1995-1999. The workers won in the federal District Court in Spokane, but IBP took the case to the federal appellate court in San Francisco--where it lost again--and now the High Court.
The workers “sought pay under the Fair Labor Standards Act”--the law that governs pay and overtime--”for reasonable time spent walking to their work stations after retrieving their work attire at their locker before the beginning of the work shifts, and time spent walking from their work stations before doffing that attire after the end of the work shifts,” the judge in Spokane said.
He added IBP defended its right not to pay the workers by citing a 1973 amendment to FLSA, the Portal Act, which “excludes from the FLSA’s compensation requirements the time spent by employees walking between their work stations and the places where they pick up and return their clothes.”
But he ruled--there was no jury in the case--that IBP had to pay the workers for the time they spent taking the gear on and off, as it was an “integral and indispensable” part of their work day. “And (he) ruled for respondents (the workers) on the compensability of related walking time,” court papers add.
IBP, leaning on the Portal Act, said Congress decided that the only part of the day the workers could get paid for is when they’re actually on the meat-cutting line. A 1972 case--the one that led to the Portal Act--”does not compel the conclusion that, once any integral and indispensable clothes changing occurs, the compensable workday automatically begins even though the employees have not yet arrived at their actual work stations,” it argued.
In Los Angeles, former low-level Calendar Deputy DA Richard Ceballos charged his bosses retaliated against him for a 2000 inter-office memo which pointed out holes in the DA’s case against three narcotics suspects. Ceballos said the retaliation violated the free speech guarantees of the First Amendment, part of the Bill of Rights.
Ceballos lost in federal district court in Los Angeles. Its judge said “controlling case law” says “speech engaged in not merely as a concerned citizen but within the scope of the plaintiff’s employment does not address a matter of public concern.” The First Amendment protects free speech, especially on “matters of public concern.”
But Ceballos won in the appellate court in San Francisco. It ruled “all public employment speech” is “protected by the First Amendment with the only caveat being the speech be of ‘relevance to the public’s evaluation of the performance of govern-ment agencies.’” An upset Garcetti complained to the justices that “public employers must now assume virtually all job required speech is constitutionally protected.”
