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INTEGRITY STAFFING SOLUTIONS, INC. v. BUSK 

Syllabus 

§251(a); Tennessee Coal, Iron & R. Co. v. Muscoda Local No. 123, 321 
U. S.  590,  598.    The  Portal-to-Portal  Act  exempted  employers  from 
FLSA  liability  for  claims  based  on  “activities  which  are  preliminary 
to or postliminary to” the performance of the principal activities that
an employee is employed to perform.  §254(a)(2).  Under this Court’s 
precedents,  the  term  “principal  activities”  includes  all  activities
which are an “integral and indispensable part of the principal activi-
ties.”  Steiner v. Mitchell, 350 U. S. 247, 252–253.  An activity is “in-
tegral  and  indispensable”  if  it  is  an  intrinsic  element  of  the  employ-
ee’s  principal  activities  and  one  with  which  the  employee  cannot 
dispense  if  he  is  to  perform  his  principal  activities.    This  Court  has 
identified several activities that satisfy this test—see, e.g., id., at 249, 
251;  Mitchell  v.  King  Packing  Co.,  350  U. S.  260,  262—and  Depart-
ment  of  Labor  regulations  are  consistent  with  this  approach,  see  29
CFR §§790.8(c), 790.7(g).  Pp. 3–7.

(b) The  security  screenings  at  issue  are  noncompensable  postlimi-
nary activities.  To begin with, the screenings were not the principal 
activities the employees were employed to perform—i.e., the workers 
were  employed  not  to  undergo  security  screenings  but  to  retrieve
products  from  warehouse  shelves  and  package  them  for  shipment.
Nor  were  they  “integral  and  indispensable”  to  those  activities.    This 
view  is  consistent  with  a  1951  Department  of  Labor  opinion  letter,
which  found  noncompensable  under  the  Portal-to-Portal  Act  both  a 
preshift  screening  conducted  for  employee  safety  and  a  postshift 
search conducted to prevent employee theft.  The Ninth Circuit’s test, 
which focused on whether the particular activity was required by the 
employer rather than whether it was tied to the productive work that 
the  employee  was  employed  to  perform,  would  sweep  into  “principal
activities”  the  very  activities  that  the  Portal-to-Portal  Act  was  de-
signed  to  exclude  from  compensation.    See,  e.g.,  IBP,  supra,  at  41. 
Finally,  respondents’  claim  that  the  screenings  are  compensable  be-
cause Integrity Staffing could have reduced the time to a de minimis 
amount is properly presented at the bargaining table, not to a court 
in an FLSA claim.  Pp. 7–9. 

713 F. 3d 525, reversed. 

THOMAS,  J.,  delivered  the  opinion  for  a  unanimous  Court.    SO-

TOMAYOR, J., filed a concurring opinion, in which KAGAN, J., joined.