Are You Being Paid for Every Minute You Work? What NJ Warehouse Workers Need to Know

New Jersey warehouses are enormous. Some span hundreds of thousands of square feet. Many cover well over a million. Before the first box is lifted or the first item scanned, workers may walk five minutes or more just to reach their workstation. At the end of the shift, they do it all over again. In most of these facilities, the clock does not start until the worker arrives at the station and does not stop until the worker leaves it. That gap between arrival at the facility and arrival at the workstation often goes entirely unpaid.

This is not a minor inconvenience. It may be a violation of New Jersey law, and it is the foundation of some of the largest wage-and-hour class action settlements in the state’s recent history.

What Is “Off-the-Clock” Walking Time?

“Off-the-clock” work refers to any work-related activity an employee performs without being compensated. In warehouse settings, the most common form is what employment lawyers call pre-shift and post-shift walking time: the time an employee spends walking to and from their assigned workstation before and after punching in or out.  The practice typically looks like this:

• An employee arrives at the warehouse and enters through a security checkpoint.
• They walk several minutes across the facility floor to reach their workstation.
• Only then do they clock in.
• At shift’s end, they clock out at the station and begin the same long walk back, sometimes passing through another mandatory security screening before being permitted to leave.

Every minute of that walking and screening time is often uncompensated. Multiply those minutes by the number of shifts in a year and multiply that by the hundreds or thousands of workers employed at a single distribution center, and the unpaid wages become substantial.

Why New Jersey Law Is Different from Federal Law

This is where New Jersey stands apart from most other states, and why it has become a hotbed of these lawsuits.

Under federal law, the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) and its companion statute, the Portal-to-Portal Act of 1947, generally exclude “preliminary and postliminary” activities from compensable time. The U.S. Department of Labor has taken the position that time spent walking to where one’s actual work is performed is not paid time under federal law, unless a contract or established practice provides otherwise.

New Jersey law goes further. The New Jersey Wage and Hour Law (NJWHL), defines “hours worked” to include all time that employers require their employees to “be at his or her place of work.” This is a meaningfully broader standard than the federal baseline. Courts in New Jersey have relied on this language to hold that time spent walking within a warehouse facility, or standing in a mandatory security line, counts as hours worked and must be compensated.

This distinction matters enormously. A claim that would not survive under the FLSA alone can succeed under the NJWHL.

The Math: How Minutes Become Millions

The power of these cases lies in aggregation. Consider this straightforward example:

• A warehouse employs 500 hourly workers.
• Each worker walks an average of 6 minutes per day (3 minutes pre-shift, 3 minutes post-shift) without pay.
• Workers earn $17/hour on average.
• Employees work 250 days per year.

That is 25 hours of unpaid time per worker per year, or $425 per worker annually. Across 500 workers, that is $212,500 per year. Over a six-year statute of limitations period (discussed below), potential exposure approaches $1.275 million in unpaid wages alone, before liquidated damages are added.

Under New Jersey’s Wage Theft Act, successfully proved violations can result in liquidated damages equal to 200% of the unpaid wages, in addition to the wages themselves and attorneys’ fees. That means the employer’s exposure in the example above could reach nearly $3.8 million. For a facility with thousands of employees, the numbers scale dramatically.

Real Cases, Real Settlements: What Has Happened in New Jersey

New Jersey has already seen several significant cases on exactly this issue.

Sadler v. Target Corp. (D.N.J., Case No. 1:23-cv-00030-CPO-SAK)

In November 2022, a named plaintiff who worked at one of Target’s three New Jersey distribution centers filed a class action alleging that Target violated the NJWHL by failing to compensate warehouse workers for time spent walking long distances to and from their assigned stations for mandatory pre- and post-shift security screenings. The three Target distribution centers in New Jersey collectively span more than 2 million square feet.

Workers were required to show ID at the facility entrance, pass through mandatory screenings, walk long distances to their work location, and only then clock in. At shift’s end, they clocked out and walked back across the facility for a required exit screening.

In October 2025, the class of approximately 13,700 current and former employees agreed to a $4.6 million settlement. Eligible workers at Target’s Burlington, Perth Amboy, and Logan Township distribution centers who worked from August 6, 2019 onward received payments automatically, distributed on a pro-rata basis from the net settlement fund of approximately $2.75 million.

Target denied any wrongdoing, but the settlement reflects the courts’ willingness to treat these minutes of unpaid time as compensable when aggregated across a large workforce.

Taggart v. FedEx (D.N.J.)

In a case filed by William Taggart of Perth Amboy on behalf of approximately 97,795 hourly FedEx employees across New Jersey, workers alleged that FedEx failed to pay them for time spent undergoing security screenings, traveling to and from screening areas, and walking to time clocks before and after shifts. Workers at FedEx hubs across New Jersey reportedly faced 5 to 10-minute walks just to clock in.

In February 2026, FedEx agreed to pay $8.5 million to settle the case. FedEx, like Target, denied any wrongdoing.

Vaccaro/Chiu v. Amazon.com.DEDC, LLC (D.N.J., Case No. 3:18-cv-11852)

Beginning in 2018, Amazon faced a proposed class action in the U.S. District Court for the District of New Jersey over its policy of requiring hourly fulfillment center workers to submit to mandatory post-shift security screenings without compensation. In June 2020, the District Court ruled that Amazon must face the class action, holding that time spent in mandatory security screenings is compensable under the NJWHL because it is controlled and required by the employer and primarily benefits the employer. The court subsequently denied Amazon’s motion for summary judgment on the remaining claims.

These cases share a common thread: New Jersey’s broader definition of “hours worked” under the NJWHL provided a viable path to recovery that federal law alone would not have supported.

Who Is Most at Risk of This Practice?

Certain types of businesses in New Jersey are more likely to have this issue:

• Large distribution and fulfillment centers (e.g., retail giants, e-commerce companies, grocery chains) where the physical footprint of the facility is enormous and workstations are far from entry points
• Food processing and cold-storage facilities, where workers often must change into required gear and walk to sanitation areas before clocking in
• Pharmaceutical warehouses, which may involve controlled-access security protocols requiring additional screening
• Logistics and freight hubs, including package-sorting facilities where workers enter at one location but work across large floor plans
• Manufacturing plants with large factory floors and remote time-clock stations

The common denominator is a large facility where the time clock is not located at the actual workstation, meaning workers must complete a mandatory physical journey before “official” work begins in the employer’s view.

How New Jersey Law Protects You

The New Jersey Wage and Hour Law (NJWHL)

The NJWHL requires that employers pay non-exempt employees at least the minimum wage and overtime (at 1.5 times the regular rate) for all hours worked in excess of 40 hours in a workweek. The law’s definition of “hours worked” is broader than the federal standard and has been interpreted by courts to cover time an employer requires employees to spend on the employer’s premises, even before the official clock-in.

The New Jersey Wage Theft Act of 2019

In August 2019, New Jersey enacted the Wage Theft Act, significantly strengthening employee protections. Key provisions include:

• Liquidated damages of up to 200% of unpaid wages, on top of the wages themselves, meaning a successful employee may recover up to three times what was withheld
• A six-year statute of limitations, extended from the prior two-year period, allowing workers to recover up to six years of unpaid wages
• Attorneys’ fees and costs awarded to prevailing employees, which is critical because it allows workers to bring claims without any out-of-pocket legal expense
• Presumption in favor of the employee if the employer has failed to maintain accurate records
• Anti-retaliation protections for employees who raise wage complaints or participate in proceedings

The good faith defense to liquidated damages is available only for a first offense, and only if the employer acknowledges the violation and pays the wages owed within 30 days.

The Statute of Limitations: Six Years

Because New Jersey now provides a six-year lookback period for wage claims, workers can potentially recover for unpaid time going back six years from the date a claim is filed. This significantly increases the value of a claim and is one of the reasons New Jersey is a particularly favorable state for these types of lawsuits.

Class Actions and Collective Actions: Why Filing Together Matters

Individual wage-and-hour claims for a few minutes per day may be modest on their own. The power of these cases comes from joining together.

Under New Jersey law, workers can pursue Rule 23 class actions, in which all similarly situated employees are included unless they affirmatively opt out. This allows a single lawsuit to represent thousands of workers at once. Parallel claims under the FLSA may also be filed as collective actions under 29 U.S.C. §216(b), though those require workers to affirmatively opt in.

The practical result: a class or collective action can accumulate relatively small individual claims into a case worth millions of dollars. Courts have approved these cases, and employers have settled them, even when the unpaid time at issue was only a matter of minutes per shift. In the Target case, badge-swipe data, security-system logs, and walking-distance mapping were used to demonstrate systematic unpaid work across the facility.

You do not need to miss large chunks of pay to have a claim. If your employer is systematically shaving minutes off the front and back of every shift, and thousands of your coworkers are experiencing the same thing, the aggregate can be significant.

What You Should Do If This Is Happening to You

If you work in a New Jersey warehouse or large facility and you are not clocking in until you reach your workstation (rather than when you enter the building), consider the following steps:

• Document your walk time. Note how long it takes each day to walk from the entry point or security checkpoint to your workstation.
• Keep records. Write down your actual arrival time versus your clock-in time, and your clock-out time versus your actual departure time. Even notes on your phone can help.
• Note mandatory checkpoints. If you are required to pass through a security screening, a badge reader, or any other employer-required stop before clocking in or after clocking out, document that process.
• Talk to coworkers. If this is happening to you, it is almost certainly happening to others. The strength of a class action depends on multiple workers sharing the same experience.
• Do not fear retaliation. The New Jersey Wage Theft Act includes strong anti-retaliation protections for employees who raise wage concerns or participate in proceedings. Retaliation is itself a separate violation carrying additional penalties.
• Consult a member of Stark & Stark’s Employment Law Team.  We will assess the strength of a potential claim and advise you on your options.

Disclaimer: This blog post is intended for general informational and educational purposes only. It does not constitute legal advice and does not create an attorney-client relationship. Every situation is different, and past case results do not guarantee any outcome in future matters. If you believe your employer has violated New Jersey wage and hour laws, you should consult a licensed New Jersey employment attorney to discuss the specific facts of your situation.

Attorney advertising. Prior results do not guarantee a similar outcome.