SHOULD EMPLOYEE TRAVEL TIME BE COMPENSATED?

     Generally, an employee’s commuting time between home and work is not considered hours worked. This rule applies whether the employee works in one location or at several work sites. However, travel during the work day related to the employer’s business is considered hours worked and, therefore, compensable.

     It is common for service technicians and other field workers to drive company vehicles to the customer’s home or place of business to service or install a product. Under the law, travel time between an employee’s home and the changing worksites (where he or she may be assigned to in any given day) are excluded from the work hours and not compensable work time. However, this law creates an exception where the travel time is “subject to the control of the employer.”

     For example, in a case where the employees are required by the employer to meet at a designated place to take its buses to work and prohibited from using their own transportation, a California court has ruled that the travel time is compensable hours of work. A different result was obtained, however, where employees were not required by their employer to take the company-provided transportation. Where the employees had the option of taking the employer’s buses or their own transportation, travel time was not considered compulsory and, thus, not compensable.

     Commute time has also been found by courts to be compensable in the following cases:

     1) where the travel involves a special one-day assignment to another city

     2) traveling to receive instructions, and

     3) where the workday begins at home, continues at various job sites, and ends well after returning home.

     Job-related travel time during the work day (excluding the commute time between home and work) is generally considered compensable time. If the employer’s principal activities during a workday include travel, such as servicing client calls, such time is hours worked. Likewise travel to a meeting for the purpose of receiving instruction, performing work, or collecting tools must be counted as working time.

     Work performed while traveling is also compensable. For example, an employee whose job is either to drive a truck, bus boat or airplane or to ride in such vehicles as a helper or assistant, is performing compensable work.

     The Division of Labor Standards Enforcement has recognized the ability of employers to establish a different rate of pay for travel time. If the employer has agreed to pay the employee a fixed hourly rate of pay for any work performed, travel time must be paid at that hourly rate or, if applicable, the required overtime rate.