On June 9, 2026, two federal appeals courts issued decisions in favor of employees in workers’ wage cases. One case began in a line outside an Illinois warehouse, where employees allegedly waited on-premises through mandatory COVID-19 health screenings before they were allowed to clock in, and a court said that time was not paid time. The other reached the appeals court after a California trial court told a former delivery driver that her wage lawsuit must be arbitrated, and could not stay in court. Both cases represent important victories for workers.  

Paid time in the screening line: the Illinois warehouse ruling 

Starting in March 2020, Amazon allegedly required hourly employees at its Illinois warehouses to pass a medical screening before clocking in for each shift. Workers lined up at the facility entrance for temperature checks and symptom questions. The screenings allegedly took 10 to 15 minutes on average, sometimes longer, and the time was unpaid because pay did not start until the worker clocked in. Spread across a workweek, the screenings alleged to add up to an hour or more of unpaid time on the employer’s premises, under the employer’s rules. 

Two former warehouse employees sued in 2023 in a proposed class action, claiming the unpaid screening time pushed their workweeks past 40 hours and that they were owed overtime under the Illinois Minimum Wage Law, the state statute that requires time-and-a-half pay for hours over 40 in a week (820 ILCS 105/4a). 

This time need not be paid under federal law as the Portal-to-Portal Act, as interpreted by the Supreme Court in Integrity Staffing Solutions v. Busk (2014), excludes activities that are “preliminary” to a worker’s principal job duties from federal pay requirements. In Integrity Staffing Solutions, the Supreme Court found that pre-shift and post-shift security screenings and concluded that screening time is generally not required to be paid time under federal law. 

The trial court in the Amazon case reasoned that Illinois law followed the federal rule. The workers appealed. The Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals used a procedure called certification (sending an unsettled question of state law to the state’s highest court for an authoritative answer) and asked the Illinois Supreme Court to address this decided whether Illinois followed the Integrity Staffing rule. The Illinois Supreme Court found that it did not.  

In Johnson v. Amazon.com Services, LLC, 2026 IL 132016, the court concluded that the Illinois Minimum Wage Law does not incorporate the Portal-to-Portal Act’s exclusion for preliminary activities. Nothing in the Illinois statute mentions the federal exclusion, and the Illinois Department of Labor’s rules define “hours worked” to include all time an employee is required to be on duty or on the employer’s premises (56 Ill. Adm. Code 210.110). A screening line a worker must stand in, on the employer’s property, before being allowed to start a shift fits that definition. 

The court’s reasoning was direct: Illinois wrote its own wage law, the law’s text contains no preliminary-activities exclusion, and courts may not read one in because federal law has one. 

Thus, for Illinois workers, the time your employer requires you to spend on the premises before clocking in or after clocking out (screenings, security checks, bag checks, waiting to be released, putting on or taking off protective gear, etc.) may be compensable time under Illinois law even if federal law does not demand the same treatment. If that time pushes a week past 40 hours, you may be owed overtime. The Illinois Minimum Wage Law allows workers to recover triple the underpayment, plus attorney fees, and overtime claims under it carry a three-year filing period.  

A vacated arbitration order: the delivery driver’s case 

For a worker, the moment usually arrives a few weeks or months into a lawsuit. You sued for unpaid wages. Your employer points to a clause in paperwork you signed when you took the job and asks the court to move the case to arbitration (a private dispute resolution process outside the court, decided by a private arbitrator rather than a judge or jury). The court agrees, and the case you filed in a public courthouse becomes a private proceeding. 

That is what happened to a former delivery driver in California who sued over alleged unpaid wages. On June 9, 2026, the Ninth Circuit directed the trial court to vacate (set aside) its order in Rebecca Orr v. United Parcel Service Inc sending her claims to arbitration, concluding it was an error for the court to refuse to determine the basis for its authority to order arbitration. 

The appellate court ruled that a court cannot order a worker’s case out of court without identifying the law that gives it the power to do so. For most workers, that law is the Federal Arbitration Act, the 1925 federal statute that generally requires courts to enforce arbitration agreements. But the Federal Arbitration Act does not cover everyone, and for drivers in particular, whether it applies at all has become an active question in employment law. 

The transportation worker question 

Section 1 of the Federal Arbitration Act exempts the employment contracts of seamen, railroad employees, and other workers “engaged in foreign or interstate commerce.” When the exemption applies, the federal law does not require the worker to arbitrate, and any class action waiver in the arbitration agreement is unenforceable under that law. Thus, under the FAA, a large share of delivery drivers (last-mile drivers, package delivery contractor drivers, food and beverage distribution drivers) may be exempt from the Federal Arbitration Act entirely. 

If the Federal Arbitration Act does not apply to a driver, an order sending the driver’s case usually rests on state law.  State arbitration statutes have their own coverage rules, and plaintiffs may have different state law based arguments against enforcement. California, where this case arose, has some of the strongest worker-protections in the country, including limits on unfair arbitration agreements. An order compelling arbitration that would be routine under the FAA can come out differently under state law, especially in California. 

Thus, the Ninth Circuit’s ruling enforces that courts must identify the source of authority first, then apply those rules. 

The stakes for a wage claim are real. In court, a worker’s case is heard publicly, by a judge or jury, with full rights of appeal, and workers with the same claims can join together in one class lawsuit when the facts support it. In arbitration, the case is private, decided by an arbitrator whose ruling is more final, and usually requires workers to proceed alone. 

A consultation with an attorney experienced in wage and hour claims can help sort out the specifics: whether your unpaid time is covered by your state’s law, whether an arbitration clause actually reaches your claims, and what your options are. Please reach out to Schneider Wallace at 1-800-689-0024 or info@schneiderwallace.com.