Travel Away From Home
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Question: One of our employees will be traveling to an out-of-town conference on an upcoming weekend. He will ride a bus for three hours on a Friday and stay overnight. He will then attend the conference on Saturday before riding the bus back home later that day. We understand we need to pay him for his time spent attending the conference. Our question is specifically about the three-hour bus rides to and from the conference: Do we need to pay him for his travel time on the bus? He will not be performing any work on the bus.
Answer:
If an employee is subject to the federal Fair Labor Standards Act, they must be paid for all time spent in physical or mental exertion, whether burdensome or not, that is controlled or required by their employer and pursued necessarily and primarily for the employer’s benefit. Travel that keeps an employee away from home overnight is compensable worktime when it cuts across the employee's workday; the employee is simply substituting travel for other duties. This time includes not only hours worked on regular working days during normal working hours but also during the corresponding hours on nonworking days. For example, if an employee regularly works from 9 a.m.to 5 p.m., Monday through Friday, then travel time during these hours would still be considered worktime on Saturday and Sunday as well as on the other days.
However, federal regulations state that time spent traveling away from home outside of regular working hours as a passenger on an airplane, train, boat, bus or automobile is not considered worktime. That being said, employers should check their state and local laws, as requirements may vary. For example, California law does not distinguish between hours worked during normal working hours and hours worked outside normal working hours. Under California law, if an employer requires an employee to attend an out-of-town business meeting, training session or any other event, the employer cannot disclaim the obligation to pay for the employee's time spent getting to and from the event. In any case, employers should remember that they must apply the laws deemed most protective of their employees.
