Travel Time
ray emser
11 Posts
We are a contruction company located in NC. My question concerns The Fair Labor Standard Title 29 (section 785.39) "Travel away from home community."
We have hired (in North Carolina) guys from W.Va. and have them working on construction sites in NC. Does the law require us to pay them travel time from their home and again at the end of the week from the site to their home, if they drive their own vehicles? Does this law apply to us or is there some other law that would cover this situation?
We have hired (in North Carolina) guys from W.Va. and have them working on construction sites in NC. Does the law require us to pay them travel time from their home and again at the end of the week from the site to their home, if they drive their own vehicles? Does this law apply to us or is there some other law that would cover this situation?
Comments
The individuals from West Virginia live in North Carolina during the week to be closer to the worksites and on weekends return home to West Virginia. If that is the case, the travel time is not work time.
The provision you cite in FLSA is for situaitons where the employer instructs the emplyee to go to another city than where the employee is headquartered or regularly station to perform duties for a day.
In this case the employees voluntarily commute just as an employee commutes to GET TO where they work.
In this case, the employee has two homes -- one for the weekend in West Virgian (where I guess his family is) and one during the week (in North Carolina) to make access to the job more easy.
In your situation you're confusing the employee's far distance he has to commute from his home for the weekend to his home during the week. That was a condition of the job when he took it. And travel between homes is not work time. It's commute time which is NOT work time.
Section 785.35 may provide some guidance here:
"An employee who travels from home before his regular work day and returns to his home at the end of the workday is engaged in ordinary home to work travel which is a normal incident of employment. This is true whether he works at a fixed location or at different job sites. Normal travel from home to work is not work time."
If the employer requires the employee to travel away from his home DURING the week for to another city that keeps the employee overnight in that OTHER city, then under .39 that would appear to be paid work time IF the employee is required to travel during his regular work hours either on a work day or on a regular "day off."
If the travel occurs outside the employee's regular work hours, such as before his regular start time or after his regular quit time, then it would not be considered work time and it would not have to be paid.