Travel time clarification, please.

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MeliMoore

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Hi Everyone!

I am in staffing and have a client company who asks our employee (non-exempt) to drive from his house to point A to meet up with the foreman in a company vehicle and then continues on to the job site which may be up to 2 hours away (point B). (My understanding is that there is no loading/unloading of product at point A, they are just carpooling. Sometimes point A is at the company shop, but it is sometimes at the foremans house as well.) The employee is not currently getting travel time pay until he reaches point B.

My thought was that travel time ought to be paid during the time traveling from point A to point B. Is that correct or would that still count as their normal commute time?

I looked up CFR 785.38 (Travel that is all in a days work) already, but am just not sure if meeting up to carpool with the manager would turn this situation into compensable time.

Appreciate the help as always! I hope you are all doing well.
 
It appears what is relevant is your agreement with the employee foremost. If the job site is variable, the employee should start work at the time he is actually engaged to work under the employers control. It would be foolish for an employee to not require travel time for a job several hours away. It would be foolish for an employer to expect an employee to travel several hours for a job. The logical point appears to be the employee is engaged at the meet point and paid from there on. As he is not working in his professional capacity, it would not be unrealistic to pay minimum wage for him to warm a seat for 4 hours a day. I suggest you work out the details with the employee, then approach your contractor.
 
Is the employee required to meet the foreman at this point? Or is he free to go directly to the job site if he chooses?
 
This position is an electricians assistant. Therefore they travel on a regular basis. At this time the client company IS paying for the travel time between jobs, it is just this initial driving time after meeting up with the crew that I am uncertain about. As you can imagine we are having difficulty placing this position since several hours of the day driving to the worksite and back are not compensated. A potential two hour uncompensated commute for a $10/hour job is a pretty tough sell to a candidate.
 
I agree with you completely, disagreeable. I was hoping it might fall under 'travel in a days work' section of the guidelines so that I could tell our client that they were required to pay that time. Unfortunately being in the staffing industry, even if we feel that it SHOULD be paid doesn't necessarily mean that our clients will feel the same way.
 
The FLSA doesn't require employers to reimburse workers for getting to & from the job, regardless of time spent (Kavanagh v Grand Union Co., No. 98-7696, 2nd Cir.)

However, that doesn't mean the time in your post can't be paid for.
 
How you pay your employee and how you bill are not uniform events. It is possible to pay the employee minimum wage for travel to "get them" and bill the contractor a slightly higher actual per hour wage to compensate.
 
Since the employee is not required to make that stop but has the option of driving directly to the job site, the time is not under the direction of the employer and thus is not compensable time. You may pay it; you need not pay it.
 
If employer doesn't pay it (doesn't have to), an employee who lives a good distance from the job site can keep the job w/o the add'l. pay, move closer to the job site or look for a job closer to home. It's not the employer's "fault" if an employee lives a good distance from work. (not their responsibility to pay them to get to & from work)

That is something an employee needs to consider when accepting a job offer. It would be nice if the employer did pay it.
 
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You might consider advertising the job in a venue close to the job site. You will then be able to drop the entire issue.
 
Hi Betty3, yes I agree it would be nice if the client pays it. We will be suggesting some options for the client to consider including a lower wage/markup for the travel time hours in order to give some compensation for the ees time.

Disagreeable, we are pulling candidates from the location of the contractors business. Since he is an electrical contractor the work sites vary throughout the region the of the state. It is the time traveling to the work-sites that are not being compensated. I thank you all for your input! Have a wonderful week.
 
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