Must Maine employers provide compensation for COVID-19 temperature checks?

In light of the coronavirus pandemic, the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) is permitting employers to take employees’ temperatures, administer COVID-19 tests, and otherwise screen employees for symptoms. Over the next several months, employees may spend extra time in lines awaiting screening protocol. Must they be compensated while awaiting and undergoing COVID-19 screenings in the workplace? For guidance, let's revisit Frlekin v. Apple, the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA), and the Portal-to-Portal Act.

Frlekin v. Apple and a subsequent Amazon settlement

We recently reported on Frlekin v. Apple, a California ruling requiring Apple to compensate employees for time spent awaiting and undergoing security screenings when leaving the workplace (see “Security checks in the workplace: Does California Supreme Court case apply in Maine?”). Under California law, employers must pay their employees for all “hours worked,” defined as “the time during which an employee is subject to the control of an employer, [including] all the time the employee is suffered or permitted to work, whether or not [he is] required to do so.”

You may recall that in Frlekin, the court found employees remained under the company’s control during security checks and were thus entitled to compensation because they must: