Earlier this year, the Illinois Supreme Court issued an important decision for Illinois employers. In Johnson v. Amazon.com Services, LLC, 2026 IL 132016, the Court held that the preliminary and postliminary activities exclusion of the Portal-to-Portal Act (PPA) that is part of the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) was not incorporated into the Illinois Minimum Wage Law (IMWL).
Legal Background
To understand Johnson, it’s important to understand the history of pertinent federal and state laws related to minimum wage and overtime pay.
In 1938, the FLSA established federal requirements for minimum wage and overtime payments.[1] Nearly 10 years later, the FLSA was amended when Congress passed the PPA. Pertinent to Johnson, the PPA created exceptions to the FLSA’s minimum wage and overtime requirements. One of these exceptions was for “activities which are preliminary to or postliminary to said principal activity or activities.”[2]
In 1971, Illinois passed the IMWL, the state’s counterpart to the FLSA. The IMWL provided state minimum wage and overtime criteria. Because its language is modeled after the FLSA, Illinois courts have historically relied on how federal courts and agencies have interpreted the FLSA to guide their interpretation of the IMWL.[3] In fact, certain regulations under the IMWL allow the Director of the Illinois Department of Labor to refer to federal law, regulations, and interpretations of the FLSA to guide application of the IMWL.[4]
While the Illinois Department of Labor and Illinois courts often rely on interpretations of the FLSA to guide their interpretation of the IMWL, the two statutes are not identical. Of particular relevance here, while section 4(c) of the IMWL, like the FLSA, provides a right to payment at 1.5 times the regular rate of pay for time worked in excess of 40 hours per work week, it does not include all the same exceptions to this general rule as the FLSA.[5] This disparity is at the heart of the issue addressed by the Illinois Supreme Court in Johnson.
The Case
In March 2020, Amazon began requiring all hourly, nonexempt employees to undergo medical “screenings” before clocking in for their shift due to the COVID-19 pandemic. The screenings took around 10-15 minutes and occasionally required employees to clock in after their scheduled start time. Johnson, 2026 IL 132016 ¶ 4. Eventually, a group of plaintiffs filed a class action against Amazon in Illinois state court. The case was later removed to the Northern District of Illinois. The plaintiffs argued that the unpaid screenings violated the FLSA and IMWL because: (1) they were required to be on the premises, (2) the screenings were necessary for their work, and (3) the screenings primarily benefited Amazon. Id. at ¶ 5.
The district court granted Amazon’s motion to dismiss, finding that the FLSA excluded preliminary and postliminary activities from compensable time. Similarly, it dismissed the plaintiffs’ claims under the IMWL, reasoning that because courts routinely look to the FLSA when interpreting the IMWL, the same activities were excluded under the IMWL. The plaintiffs appealed, and the Seventh Circuit certified the issue of whether the IMWL is subject to the PPA’s exclusions for preliminary and postliminary activities to the Illinois Supreme Court.
The Court’s Decision
The Court reviewed Section 4(a) of the IMWL to determine whether its text incorporated the exclusion. In doing so, the Court found that the IMWL did not mention the PPA or preliminary/postliminary activities in the listed exceptions. Additionally, Section 210.110 of the Illinois Administrative Code defined “hours worked” as “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.”[6]
Considering these provisions, the Court held that the Illinois General Assembly did not intend to incorporate the preliminary/ postliminary exclusion of the PPA into the IMWL. Instead of adopting language identical to that of the FLSA, the General Assembly delegated the authority to define “hours worked” to the Illinois Department of Labor, which in turn adopted a definition that includes preliminary and/or postliminary activities and explicitly included all time that an employee is required to be on duty on an employer’s premises. Therefore, the Court held that the IMWL does not incorporate the preliminary/postliminary exclusion. As such, the time that the plaintiffs were required to be present to undergo medical screening before starting work was included in compensable time.
Implications for Illinois Businesses
Following the Johnson ruling, Illinois employers should reevaluate their timekeeping practices and workplace policies to reduce the risk of future wage claims. Particular attention should be paid to requirements that employees be onsite before clocking in or after clocking out. Employers can no longer rely on the argument that such activities are noncompensable solely because they are unrelated to employees’ principal job duties. As a result, employers should consider whether changes to their timekeeping practices are warranted, such as ensuring employees clock in before performing any required pre-shift activities and clock out only after completing all required post-shift activities.
[1] 29 U.S.C.§§ 201 et seq.
[2] 29 U.S.C.§§ 251 et seq.
[3] See Haynes v. Tru-Green Corp., 154 Ill. App. 3d 967 (4th Dist. 1987); Samano v. Temple of Kriya, 2020 IL App (1st) 190699 (Sept. 3, 2020).
[4] 56 Ill. Admin. Code § 210.120
[5] 56 Ill. Admin. Code § 210.120
[6] 56 Ill. Adm. Code § 210.110