In Johnson v. Amazon.com Services LLC, the Illinois Supreme Court addressed whether Illinois workers must be paid for required activities that happen before a work shift begins. The case arose after Amazon required warehouse employees to undergo Covid 19 health screening before clocking in, without pay. The federal court initially dismissed the workers’ claims, relying on the Portal to Portal Act (29 U.S.C. §254(a)(2)) which allows employers to exclude pay for some activities that happen before or after an employee’s main job duties (“preliminary and postliminary activity”), such as security checks or preparation time.

The key question in Johnson was whether Illinois’s minimum wage law adopted those same federal exclusions. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit said Illinois law was unclear and asked the Illinois Supreme Court to answer that question directly. The Illinois Supreme Court explained that Illinois lawmakers did not incorporate the federal “preliminary and postliminary activity” exemptions in the Illinois minimum wage law and that the General Assembly delegated the authority to define “hours worked” to the Illinois Department of Labor. The court found that the “IDOL adopted a definition of ‘hours worked’ that necessarily includes preliminary and postliminary activities, explicitly encompassing all time that an employee is required to be on an employer’s premises.”

This Illinois Supreme Court ruling did not decide whether Amazon must pay the workers for the screening time. That will be decided by the Seventh Circuit of the U.S. Court of Appeals However, this ruling clarified that in Illinois, “hours worked” includes preliminary and postliminary activities. If Illinois employers require workers to perform tasks before or after their shifts, that time may count as compensable work under Illinois law.

To read the case, see Johnson v. Amazon.com Services LLC, Case No. 132016 (Ill. March 19, 2026).