Travel Time

ray emser

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?

Hatchetman

It sounds as if this is the situation:

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.

ray emser

Thanks, Hatchetman. This is LindaD, I work with Ray. Let me get a bit more specific and see if you can help further. If they are assigned to a specific job that is far enough from their home that they must stay overnight, and this is not unusual for us but is the normal activity for our field crews, do we have to pay them to get from their home to the job site and back weekly? They do not work from any office or have to come by any office - this is travel between their home and the site. Does the same thing apply that they are actually living there during the week to be close to the job?

Hatchetman

[font size="1" color="#FF0000"]LAST EDITED ON 05-13-03 AT 07:32PM (CST)[/font][p]Again, from the way you describe it, it sounds as if the employee leaves home at the beginning of the week and commutes to an other city closer to the job site which he then stays at during the work week. And then when the week is over, he commutes back to his regular home.

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.

System

Thank you very much. I'll pass this on. Man, I have a lot to learn!