Company owes $62k to workers required to drop of trucks

 

Under the Fair Labor Standards Act (FSLA), all travel between job sites throughout the workday must be paid. This includes if employees are required to “check in” at their employer’s location after completing their work at the end of the day.

 

Making mistakes can be costly. For example, Bay Area Underpinning Inc., a foundation repair company in California must pay $62,672 in back wages to 16 employees.

 

Reason: They company didn’t pay the workers for the time they spent driving from their last jobsite of the workday to company headquarters, the Dept. of Labor said.

 

Employees were required to return to the office so they could drop off the company-owned trucks they used to perform their work that day. This time was compensable, which put Bay Area in violation of the FLSA.

 

Legal requirements

 

According to the FLSA, travel time that’s “all in a day’s work” and part of an employee’s principal job activity should be paid.

 

When employees must report to a designated place to pick up or drop off equipment, then drive to a worksite, the time spent traveling from that place to the jobsite is compensable.

 

The same goes for when a worker must stop at the office after finishing work at a different jobsite.

 

Remember: Normal commuting time between a worker’s home and the office or jobsite doesn’t have to be paid under the law.

 

Cite: bit.ly/travel556