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Yes to Getting Paid for Getting Dressed? Doesn’t Meet the Test, Says 11th CircuitWhen do you have to pay an employee before a shift? In Llorca v. Sheriff (Collier County, Florida), the Eleventh Circuit waded into the rich history of what types of pre-shift activities might qualify for hourly compensation. As we have written about before, the primary legislation dealing with dressing for and driving to and from work is the Portal-to-Portal Act of 1947, as amended by the Employee Commuting Flexibility Act of 1996. That act states that an employer is not on the hook to pay its employees for time travelling to and from work (a regular commute) or for activities that are “preliminary to or postliminary to” the “principal activity” of the job. The U.S. Supreme Court established a test that preliminary or postliminary work could only be compensable if it was an “integral and indispensable part of the principal activities.” Easy, right?

The Facts

Mr. Llorca and his cohorts were deputy sheriffs in Collier County, Florida, and were required to show up for work wearing their uniforms and certain protective gear. They were allowed to put on this equipment and clothing at home—and they did that. The deputies also commuted to and from work in marked patrol cars. During that commute, they were required to have their radios on and to respond to any emergencies if they heard them. The county did not pay the deputies for the time spent donning the protective equipment and uniform or for any time just riding to and from work—although they were paid if they had to respond to an emergency. Plaintiffs filed suit under the FLSA for that uncompensated time. The lower court dismissed their case, and they appealed.

Where and How You Get Dressed May Matter

The Eleventh Circuit opinion addressed the donning protective equipment and commuting claims separately. On the dressing claim, the court looked at whether putting on the protective equipment was both integral and indispensable to the deputies’ primary job of law enforcement. The opinion notes that this inquiry is “fact-intensive and not amenable to bright-line rules.” The court found that donning and doffing the uniform and protective equipment was an entirely separate activity from the deputies’ principal law enforcement duties—enforcing traffic laws, responding to emergencies and engaging in crime protection—so not compensable. The court also relied on DOL regulations that held that changing clothes normally is among the preliminary and postliminary activities that are non-compensable.

The court also found it significant that the deputies were allowed to dress at home. The DOL has found that changing clothes at home is not compensable and the court compared the situation to a chemical plant employee who has  to don specific chemical exposure suits while at the plant. That type of changing activity would be considered both integral and indispensable to the job and therefore recoverable. In this case, the Eleventh Circuit denied the wage claim.

Riding to and from Work

With regard to the commuting time claim, the court stated that this type of travel is exactly what the Portal-to-Portal Act attempted to exempt from the wage requirements of the FLSA—even if you are in a company vehicle. The fact that the officers might also have to be responsive to possible emergencies did not trouble the Eleventh Circuit in finding that it was not compensable time. Again, a DOL regulation also provided the court with support by holding that a police officer who is off duty, but has to have the radio on for emergency calls, is not working during the travel time. Other circuits had agreed on this point and the court noted those cases in denying the claim.

Is Dressing and Driving Always Non-Compensable?

As the court explicitly stated, these types of claims are decided on a case-by-case basis and are very fact driven. However, there are some good tips we can take from this case.

  • If an employee is able to dress at home, that is most likely not going to be a compensable activity. However, if there are pre-or post-shift activities that have to occur on site–specific location-based protective equipment, showering due to workplace exposures, etc.–that might be compensable.
  • Just because an employee drives a company vehicle doesn’t make the time compensable. But if you require someone to check the mail on the way into work or deliver a bank deposit on the way home that may turn part of the ride into a compensable event.

Again, the best bet is to have discussions with your employees about their work requirements and set expectations for how you plan to pay them.

The Waiting Is the Hardest Part: Fifth Circuit Rules on Compensability of Pre-Shift Wait TimeWhile the Portal-to-Portal Act sounds more like a science fiction movie than a wage statute, it comes into play every day for hourly employees. Enacted in 1947 in response to litigation following the relatively new (at the time) Fair Labor Standards Act, the act attempts to provide rules for when employees must be paid when they may not be actually performing their duties. Specifically, FLSA prohibits employees from seeking wages for time spent:

  • Traveling to and from the actual place where they perform the principal activities of their job, and
  • Activities which are preliminary or postliminary to those work activities.

The purpose of the law was to only compensate employees for activities integral and indispensable to their work.

Prior Court Decisions

Case law after the passage of the act further defined what counted and what didn’t. For example, courts held that for employees who manufactured batteries and worked with dangerous chemicals and fumes, time showering and changing clothes after work counted as integral and indispensable to the job and should be paid. However, courts held that time waiting to don protective gear (not the time actually spent putting on the gear) was not compensable under the Portal-to-Portal test.

More recently, courts have addressed post-shift security screenings of employees to see if that waiting time was compensable. In Integrity Staffing Sols., Inc. v. Busk, the Supreme Court held that since mandatory security screenings of warehouse employees’ were not related to their jobs of retrieving and packaging products for shipment, the time waiting for the post-shift security screenings was not compensable. Other state courts have followed suit.

So What Did the Fifth Circuit Do?

On November 9, the Fifth Circuit issued an opinion dealing with construction workers on an oil drilling operation. The plaintiffs were scaffolding workers that had to park in a remote lot and ride company buses to the refinery. While their shifts started at 7 a.m., the buses sometimes delivered them to the refinery earlier, and they had to wait around until the shift started. They filed an action arguing that the time they had to wait between being dropped off and the start of the shift was compensable because they were not allowed to perform any work during that time, but it was beneficial to the employer.

The Fifth Circuit held that the test for Portal-to-Portal compensability was whether the wait time was integral and indispensable to the principal activities they were employed to perform. Here, plaintiffs erected and dismantled scaffolding. During the wait time, they were not undergoing safety training, donning safety equipment or completing paperwork—all of that was done after 7 a.m. and paid. Instead, most of the workers testified that they used the wait time to “chat” or “smoke.” They argued that since the wait time was required by and benefited the employer, they should be paid for it.

The court disagreed. It held that under the Busk decision, the fact that an employer required an activity and that it may benefit the employer was not enough to make it compensable. Instead, the workers had to show that the preliminary wait time was integral and indispensable to their work erecting and dismantling scaffolding. The proof did not show that it was, and therefore they were not entitled to compensation for it.

What to Do with Waiting Employees?

If there are things that your employees are having to do before or after a shift, you need to be sure of what they are actually doing. If they are waiting for something like a post-shift security screening, that time may not be compensable. If they are donning safety equipment or cleaning off after a dangerous activity, it may be compensable. This decision shows that it is important to have well-defined rules as to when a shift begins and what is required of an employee pre- or post-shift.

The EEOC’s fiscal year just ended and now it is releasing news of its successes. Although this is a look back, it gives us all insight as to what is important to the Commission and, perhaps, how we can stay off its radar. While the official report is being released today, here are some highlights.

Tis the Season: The EEOC’s Year-End Reports Are Out TodayMore Efficiency, Quicker Resolution?

The EEOC is working on being more efficient and thinks it is making some progress. First, offices are prioritizing charges to focus on meritorious charges and disposing of charges more quickly. It received more than 84,000 charges of discrimination in the last fiscal year and, through its improved efficiencies, reduced its backlog to the lowest it has been in 10 years.

Another innovation is the new EEOC Public Portal that was just launched nationwide. This appears to be the flip side of the employers’ Respondent Portal that we have been using for the last few years. Employees can now find out how to file a charge, set up interviews with the EEOC and check the status of their charges all from the comfort of their homes.

More Money, More Lawsuits

As with so many government agencies, the EEOC is touting the amount of money it has recovered. The EEOC collected nearly $400 million from employers in the private sector and state and local government. Of that amount, the vast majority ($355.6 million) was paid voluntarily — through mediation, conciliation and other administrative enforcement.

On the litigation front, the EEOC recovered $42.4 million through litigation last year. The EEOC also stepped up the number of lawsuits it filed. The commission filed 184 lawsuits, more than doubling the number from FY 2016. Of the 184 suits, about 67 percent were for individuals, while only 16 percent were systemic suits.

Training Resources

You can now have the EEOC Training Institute staff train your supervisors (Leading for Respect) and employees (Respect in the Workplace). I have a client who has had the EEOC come provide harassment training for the last several years, and it looks like the Commission is institutionalizing those efforts. As the program is new, I cannot tell you what it is like. However, it is certainly something to consider, particularly in the wake of recent harassment complaints.

Takeaways

First, the EEOC is clearly trying to reduce the amount of time a charge spends with the agency. We have all had charges that were pending for more than two years—which then means you could have to defend a lawsuit with a back-pay figure that is already out of control. Perhaps the improved efficiencies will make these stale charges a thing of the past.

Second, the EEOC wants to resolve the charges early and is having some success doing so. I always talk with clients about EEOC mediation—and it works with many (although not all) charges. I have also noticed that EEOC investigators try to encourage settlement discussions even when the parties have not agreed to mediate the charge. Although I was initially leery of having the purportedly neutral investigator orchestrate negotiations, for the most part I have found the investigators’ efforts to be helpful and have resolved some charges (usually low dollar) in that way.

Third, note that the majority of the EEOC’s lawsuits are filed on behalf of individuals —not multiple plaintiffs or systemic issues. The EEOC has a list of priorities (harassment, pay disparity and disability are perennial favorites) and wants to make law on those issues. These numbers make clear that the Commission is willing to make that law one plaintiff at a time.

Finally, IMHO the best training involves your employment counsel. However, the EEOC’s training resources are worth considering. If you use these resources, it will be tough for the Commission (or a plaintiff’s lawyer) to argue that you don’t take prevention seriously.

coworkers_in_warehouseYesterday, the U.S. Supreme Court unanimously held that Amazon does not have to pay its temporary warehouse workers for the time that they spend waiting in line to go through security checks as they leave the facilities. The workers’ class-action lawsuit claimed that they had to undergo end of shift screenings to prevent theft and that the process, including waiting in line, could take as long as 25 minutes per shift, all of which is unpaid.

The U.S. Supreme Court examined the definition of “preliminary” and “postliminary” activities, as they related to the Portal-to-Portal Act. Justice Clarence Thomas wrote that the security screenings at Amazon were not “integral and indispensable” to the workers’ jobs and therefore did not mandate pay for the time spent going through the process. The Court’s opinion reversed the Ninth Circuit’s finding that the screenings were for the company’s benefit and were a necessary component of the work. Justice Thomas said that the correct test was whether the screening was tied to the employee’s “productive work.” He noted that Amazon could eliminate the security screenings altogether “without impairing the employees’ ability to complete their work.”

Employers should note that this was a limited ruling only dealing with these type security screenings. Preliminary and postliminary activities that relate to worker safety and efficiency will still require payment. For example, workers who must shower and change clothes due to their close proximity to toxic materials will still need to be paid for that time. However, this opinion may indicate the high Court’s willingness to closely scrutinize activities that occur before or after actual work or production.