The Details

The Illinois Supreme Court ruled on March 19, 2026, that the state doesn’t incorporate a federal exception that allows employers to exclude certain pre-shift and post-shift activities from hours worked, such as health screenings.

Illinois Supreme Court Case

In the case before the Illinois Supreme Court, during the COVID-19 pandemic, the employer required non-exempt warehouse employees to undergo health screenings before clocking in for their shifts.

For the screenings, employees formed a line at the entrance to the facility and underwent a brief examination, which included temperature checks and symptom-screening questions. If the employees passed the examination, they were given masks and permitted to clock in for their shifts.

A group of workers eventually filed a class-action lawsuit, arguing that the screenings took 10 to 15 minutes and that they should have counted as work time and been paid (see Johnson v. Amazon.com Services, LLC). The employer argued that both federal and state law allowed it to treat the health screenings as unpaid.

The case was removed to federal court and eventually reached a federal appeals court, which then sent it to the Illinois Supreme Court to address a question of state law.

The question before the Illinois Supreme Court was whether state law incorporates a federal exception that allows employers to exclude from hours worked employer-required pre-shift and post-shift activities if they aren’t integral and indispensable to the employee’s duties.

The Illinois Supreme Court ruled that state law doesn’t incorporate the federal exception. The court noted that, instead of adopting the exception, the state’s legislature gave the Illinois Department of Labor (IDOL) the authority to define “hours worked
 and the IDOL has adopted a broader definition that includes“ all the time an employee is required to be on duty, or on the employer’s premises, or at other prescribed places of work, and any additional time the employee is required or permitted to work for the employer.”

Note: Where federal and state law conflict, the law more protective of the employee generally applies.

Next Steps

·      Consult with legal counsel to identify any required pre-shift or post-shift activities that are not currently compensated and consider whether any changes to current   policies and practices are needed.

·      Watch for developments, since, among other things, the state legislature could amend the law in response to the ruling.  This however is not guaranteed.