Should your paycheck reflect work travel or short rest breaks during the workday? New federal guidance offers clarity about an employee’s rights.

The U.S. Department of Labor recently released a pair of opinion letters about those topics, jumping back into the longstanding practice for the first time since 2010 (the agency stuck with general guidance in the interim). The letters answer questions received about how the department’s Wage and Hour Division would apply the law to specific situations, so it’s important to note that differences may change the guidance, but the information often is broadly helpful.

Work travel

It probably comes as no surprise that your commute is your responsibility — no clocking in just for getting yourself from home to work. It doesn’t matter whether your job site is fixed or changes from day to day, and it doesn’t matter whether you drive a company vehicle.

However, if your job involves travel from place to place during the workday, the time you spend moving among job sites must count toward your hours worked, according to the WHD’s opinion letter.

The equation gets a bit trickier for overnight travel. Here’s a breakdown:

• If your travel takes place during the workday, you should be getting paid for it. The WHD views the travel as merely taking the place of other work duties.
• If you travel on the weekend but during the hours you would normally work on a weekday (i.e. between 9 a.m. and 5 p.m., but on a Saturday), that travel counts as work time for which you should be paid. However, travel outside of typical work hours — whatever day of the week — would not be compensated.
• If you truly have no normal work hours (something the division says is rare upon examination of work patterns), your employer may choose to use average start and end times to determine your workday. Alternatively, the two of you may negotiate a “reasonable amount of time or timeframe in which travel outside of employees’ home communities is compensable,” the opinion says.
• Travel from a hotel to a job/training site typically is considered the same as a commute, so it wouldn’t count as work time.

Breaks during the workday

Most of the time, employers allow for a couple of short rest breaks during the workday. But can they trim this time off of your paycheck?

Court cases have determined that the answer is no. These common breaks of up to 20 minutes yield a reenergized employee and thus predominately benefit the employer, a WHD opinion letter states.

However, sometimes an employee’s health needs demand more frequent breaks. Perhaps a doctor’s note or chronic back pain necessitate a 15-minute break every hour. In such cases, the breaks benefit the employee more than the employer, meaning the employee would not need to be paid for that time, according to the opinion letter. The caveat: An employee who requires frequent rest breaks must be paid for the breaks typically given for all employees. (For example, if each employee typically gets two breaks, then two of the specific employee’s breaks must be compensated.)

Are you butting heads with an employer about work time for which you’re not being paid? Contact Keller Grover for a free consultation. With more than 25 years of experience, the lawyers at Keller Grover have secured over $100 million in recoveries for victims of wage theft.