Atlanta Employment Attorneys Blog
One of the more thorny Fair Labor Standards Act issues for employers is ensuring proper compensation of employees who spend time doing activities that are essential but tangential to their jobs. Even if workers spend only minutes each day on these activities, the law says they are entitled to payment for that time, so employers should ensure that they are recording and compensating this time appropriately. Given how complicated this can be, consulting an experienced Atlanta wage and hour lawyer is vital to ensuring that your pay practices comply with the law.
Previously, this blog published posts, including one earlier this month, about questions surrounding the proper compensation of office workers for the time they spent starting up and shutting down their computers (and various applications necessary for their work.) Another area of industry where pre-shift/post-shift tasks may present pay problems is manufacturing, specifically, manufacturing workers who must put on and take off essential personal protective equipment (PPE) at the beginning and end of each shift.
In December, a federal appeals court in Philadelphia addressed this issue of pre-shift/post-shift duties. The defendant was an employer that operated a battery manufacturing and recycling facility. The employer required certain workers at the plant to wear special uniform clothing, safety glasses, hard hats, and other PPE. Some workers also had to shower at the end of each shift.
To compensate workers for the time they spent showering and “donning and doffing” their PPE, the employer gave workers a five-minute “grace period” at the beginning of each shift and a similar 10-minute period at the end of each shift.
The employer’s practice suffered from a significant problem that eventually led a federal jury to decide the employer owed more than $22 million to 11,780 workers. The employer’s practice illustrated that the company (correctly) recognized that it owed compensation to workers engaged in these activities.
What the employer lacked, however, was a basis establishing that its method of compensation accurately reflected the workers’ actual time spent. The employer never recorded the actual time the employees spent donning/doffing PPE or showering. It simply created the 5- and 10-minute standards and used them.
A scientific expert’s analysis revealed something far different from 15 minutes. The expert’s conclusions: 15.6 minutes for pre-shift activities and 11 minutes for post-shift. In other words, pre-shift and post-shift donning/doffing/showering took nearly 26 minutes, but the workers received compensation for only 15 minutes.
In any unpaid compensation case related to donning and doffing under the FLSA or the Portal-to-Portal Act, an activity must be “integral and indispensable” to be compensable. In the battery manufacturer case, both sides agreed that donning and doffing PPE and showering met the legal standards for being integral and indispensable.
The appeals court’s ruling also made it plain that the correct amount of time was actual time, not merely “reasonable time.” The employer said it did enough by providing 15 minutes and that paying workers based on actual time would encourage employees to spend excessive time changing and showering. The court disagreed, pointing out that the employer had the option to discipline employees who spent excessive amounts of time on the activities and that, regardless, the FLSA requires compensation for actual time, not reasonable time.
Additionally, the court made an important pronouncement regarding “de minimis” arguments. “De minimis” essential means that something is “so minor as to merit disregard,” according to Merriam-Webster. If a block of time is so small that it qualifies as de minimis, then employers need not compensate workers for that time.
The appeals court addressed who must raise the issue of “de minimis” in an unpaid hours case. According to the ruling, employers bear the legal burden of proving that a disputed time period was de minimis, rather than workers bearing the burden of proving that the time was more than de minimis.
The judgment for these workers is a reminder to all employers and employees that the FLSA’s rules related to pay practices (as well as those of the Portal-to-Portal Act) can be intricate and complicated. Whether you are an employer with questions about your business’s compliance with the law or a worker who believes your employer illegally underpaid you, look to the Atlanta wage and hour attorneys at the law firm of Parks, Chesin & Walbert. Our experienced team gives each client’s matter the utmost attention to generate practical, productive solutions. Contact us through this website or at 404-873-8048 to schedule a consultation today.