Sandifer and others sued their employer U.S. Steel under the FLSA. They claimed that the protective gear they had to wear as part of their job duties were not "clothes." Therefore, they were not under the exemption in Section 203(o), or covered by their collective bargaining agreement's exclusion.
The principal dispute was over these items:
Petitioners point specifically to 12 of what they state are the most common kinds of required protective gear: a flame-retardant jacket, pair of pants, and hood; a hardhat; a “snood”; “wristlets”; work gloves; leggings; “metatarsal” boots; safety glasses; earplugs; and a respirator.A "snood"? More later.
Anyway, if Section 203(o) did NOT apply, then the normal rules on "donning and doffing" would. Under those regulations and under case law, the changing into these items likely would be compensable. Therefore, the employees wanted Section 203(o) to be inapplicable. U.S. Steel wanted the CBA's provision and Section 203(o) to bar the claim. As a result, the Supreme Court had to decide: what does "changing clothes" mean under Section 203(o).
Justice Scalia, writing for a unanimous court (except Justice Sotomayor did not join fn 7), concluded the following:
Dictionaries from the era of §203(o)’s enactment indicate that “clothes” denotes items that are both designed and used to cover the body and are commonly regarded as articles of dress. See Webster’s New International Dic- tionary of the English Language 507 (2d ed. 1950) (Web- ster’s Second) (defining “clothes” as “[c]overing for the human body; dress; vestments; vesture”); see also, e.g., 2 Oxford English Dictionary 524 (1933) (defining “clothes” as “[c]overing for the person; wearing apparel; dress, raiment, vesture”). That is what we hold to be the meaning of the word as used in §203(o).
The Court rejected the employees' argument that "clothes" did not include any type of covering that was "indispensable" to performing the job, such that anything that provided extra safety would be excluded from the definition. The Court also rejected the employer's argument that clothes means the entire ensemble or "outfit."
That task accomplished, the Court next defined "changing." The employees argued that "changing" meant only substituting one article of clothing for another (i.e., changing shirts or pants from street wear to work pants). The Court, however, disagreed:
We think that despite the usual meaning of “changing clothes,” the broader statutory context makes it plain that “time spent in changing clothes” includes time spent in altering dress.But seriously - what is a Snood? The Court answered the question when it applied its definition of "changing clothes" to the protective gear discussed above:
Petitioners have pointed to 12 particular items: a flame- retardant jacket, pair of pants, and hood; a hardhat; a snood; wristlets; work gloves; leggings; metatarsal boots; safety glasses; earplugs; and a respirator. The first nine clearly fit within the interpretation of “clothes” elaborated above: they are both designed and used to cover the body and are commonly regarded as articles of dress. That proposition is obvious with respect to the jacket, pants, hood, and gloves. The hardhat is simply a type of hat. The snood is basically a hood that also covers the neck and upper shoulder area; on the ski slopes, one might call it a “balaclava.” The wristlets are essentially detached shirt- sleeves. The leggings look much like traditional legwarm- ers, but with straps. And the metatarsal boots—more commonly known as “steel-toed” boots—are just a special kind of shoe.Not sure why 9 Supreme Court justices would analogize to an Eastern European ukulele or a flaky pastry. I thought that ski slope gear was called a "dickey." Live and learn.
But what of the remaining items: earplugs, glasses, and the respirator? They are definitely not "clothes," the Court said. The employer then argued that putting these items on was "de minimis." No sale. The Court noted,
A de minimis doctrine does not fit comfortably within the statute at issue here, which, it can fairly be said, is all about trifles—the relatively insignificant periods of time in which employees wash up and put on various items of clothing needed for their jobs. Or to put it in the context of the present case, there is no more reason to disregard the minute or so necessary to put on glasses, earplugs, and respirators, than there is to regard the minute or so necessary to put on a snood.Yep, he mentioned the s-word again.
So, here's where the Court worked some magic that only the highest court in the land can do. It simply held that although ear plugs etc. were not "clothes," these additional items would still be subject to Section 203(o) collective bargaining. That is, putting on earplugs would be compensable if the parties negotiated that.
The employees won the argument, but lost the case. Why? Because the Court did not want to have district judges serving as time-study experts. Not kidding:
it is most unlikely Congress meant §203(o) to convert federal judges into time-study professionals. That is especially so since the consequence of dispensing with the intricate exercise of separating the minutes spent clothes-changing and washing from the minutes devoted to other activities is not to prevent compensation for the uncovered segments, but merely to leave the issue of compensation to the process of collective bargaining.This is a narrow decision that affects only the negotiation of "clothes changing" in a collective bargaining agreement. It will have little applicability in the nonunion context.
The opinion in Sandifer v. U.S. Steel Corp. is here.
