The Floor and Ceiling of Wage and Hour Laws
In recent Tips of the Week, we have pointed out situations where state wage and hour laws are more protective of employees and place more stringent requirements on employers than the federal laws. These differences between state and federal laws are often referred to as the “floor” and the “ceiling” – meaning that the least protective of the laws is the floor and the most protective laws are the ceiling. Employers must meet the requirements of the ceiling or the more protective version of the laws. A prime example of this is the minimum wage requirement. The federal minimum wage remains at $7.25 per hour, while both states and localities have set much higher minimum wage rates. Employers, under the floor and ceiling principle, must pay employees the highest minimum wage required by any of the three laws – local, state or federal.
Recent Tips of the Week have also focused on the complexity of the wage and hour laws and the expense that employers can incur if they are subject to wage violation claims. We have provided examples where employers have violated the law – both intentionally and unintentionally – and have paid the price for those violations. This week’s tip highlights another area where employers must be careful to ensure that they are meeting both the requirements of federal wage and hour laws and more stringent state or local laws – the preliminary activity rules related to compensable work time.
The Illinois Supreme Court recently decided Johnson v. Amazon.com Services, LLC, 2026 IL 132016 (March 19, 2026), a case involving a claim for unpaid wages by Amazon employees who were subject to health checks upon arriving at work. In their lawsuit, the employees claimed that the checks took 10 to 15 minutes and, at times, caused them to clock in after their scheduled start times. The employees alleged that Amazon should have been compensating them for the time spent in the screenings because the screenings were necessary for the employees to perform their work. The District Court of Illinois dismissed the plaintiffs claim, finding that the claims were barred by the Fair Labor Standards Act claims were barred by the Portal-to-Portal Act (the “PPA”). Under the PPA, certain preliminary and postliminary activities are excluded from compensable work time. In dismissing the plaintiff’s federal claim, the District Court also dismissed the state law claims applying the same PPA theory.
The plaintiffs appealed the dismissal of their lawsuit to United States Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit, which remanded the appeal to the Illinois Supreme Court, certifying that the question to be addressed by the Illinois Supreme Court was whether the Illinois Minimum Wage Law incorporates the PPA’s exclusion for preliminary and postliminary activities. The Illinois Supreme Court, applying the plain language of the statute and the corresponding state regulations, found that the Illinois Minimum Wage Law does not recognize and has not adopted the principles of the PPA and allowed the plaintiffs’ state law claims against Amazon to continue.
While the Illinois Supreme Court’s decision applies only to employers doing business in the state of Illinois, it is illustrative of the principle that state laws can be more protective of employees than the federal laws and it is imperative that employers stay up to date on state and local laws. Illinois is one of several states who have rejected the PPA’s definition of preliminary and postliminary activities and the exclusion of those activities from compensable work time. Other states that have rejected the PPA include Nevada, Arizona, Maryland, Pennsylvania, California, New York, Colorado, New Jersey, Washington and Connecticut. myHRcounsel can assist employers in ensuring that they are up to date on the latest state and federal employment laws and can work with employers to develop proactive policies to avoid wage and hour claims.