Mary is entitled to compensation for the time she spent loading, unloading and cleaning the tools, as well as for the time she spent between the warehouse and the company`s headquarters. That`s because these activities add time and effort beyond what their normal commute would require. In other words, she is doing real work for her employer during this period. What happens if the employee does not have “normal working hours”? How do you apply the hosting rules? The LOL addressed this scenario in an April 2018 notice, in which it described three eligible methods that employers can use to reasonably determine an employee`s “normal” or “normal” hours of work for the purposes of the “commuting” rule: [The term “normal travel” in 29 C.F.R. §785.35] does not constitute an objective standard as to the distance travelled by most workers or the distance at which they can reasonably be expected to travel. Rather, it is a subjective norm, defined by what is usual within the confines of a particular employment relationship. The U.S. Department of Labor (DOL) has regulations that require an employer to pay an employee for commute time that spans a normal workday, whether or not the trip takes place on a day when the employee is normally expected to work. This regulation depends on whether the trip is considered working time or not.
Your normal commute to and from work is not considered a work-time trip. However, travel from home to work outside of your usual commuting hours can be compensated if your employer has called you back to work in an emergency. Whether or not this is the case in your situation depends on it, as the courts decide on a case-by-case basis what working time travel is. For example, if an employee is supposed to work from 9:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. From Monday to Friday and the employee must travel between 18:00 and 23:00 (any day of the week), the employer is not obliged to pay for travel time. However, if the employee has to travel between 9:00 a.m. and 5:00 p.m.
(any day of the week), the employer is required to pay for the travel time. Other federal courts across the country have upheld the clear wording of section 785.35 and have consistently ruled that travel before or after the start or end of primary activities is not eligible for compensation, even if travel time varies from day to day. Travel on a special day mission to another city. The DOL says, “The time spent traveling to the other city and coming back from the other city is working time,” but they find that you can subtract the time the employee would spend getting around. According to the “everything in daytime work” rule (29 C.F.R. § 785.38), “the time an employee spends travelling in the course of his or her main activity, such as moving from one construction site to another during the working day, must be counted as hours worked”. So, if an employee drives from home to the office and then goes to a customer`s house an hour later, the commute from home to work is not paid, but the travel time to the customer`s location is considered a compensable trip for lunch according to the “all in the working day” rule. The same rule would apply throughout the workday if the employee moves from one site to another until the end of the work day for work-related reasons. Once the employee has completed the last task of the day, regardless of the location of the latter task (e.g., returning to the office, a customer`s home, etc.), the journey from that location to the employee`s home is the “normal”, “ordinary” and unpaid journey. The U.S. Department of Labor (DOL) gives the following example: Travel time during your normal workday or for emergency visits to work outside of normal working hours is not classified as overtime.
However, if travel time results in overtime, this may result in overtime pay, depending on the employment contract. The LOL states that travel time must be paid at the employee`s regular rate of pay, unless the employer and employee have an agreement to the contrary. For example, many employers pay their employees at a lower rate than their standard travel time wage.