employees paid travel

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cowboyjwc

Moderator
Staff member
Location
Simi Valley, CA
The way it was explained to me was this, if you leave the "job" and cannot stop and do anything you want, get grocery's, pick up a six pak, go to the dentist, etc. then you are still on company time.

So I agree with shop to shop.
 
Muddying the waters further:

IIRC the IRS says that between home and usual work-site is your "normal commute" and isn't deductible mileage, and I will infer from that that it isn't paid time, either. Never was for me. Once at the work site, which might be the shop, everything is on the clock except for customary unpaid breaks (ie.lunch) until you return to that place or head for home. That's one of the reasons to stop at the office/shop on the way :). This also means that stopping at the distributor to pick up parts puts you on the clock, unless you actually work out of that distributor site. This is one of the reasons that companies like to send their workers home in a company vehicle; they can go straight to the job site off the clock.

We usually payed 8 hours per calendar travel day, regardless of how many hours you were awake, but IIRC billed cost+maybe 20% to the client since no work was being done. Basically the money was a wash, no cost or profit for our company. It was all up front in the contracts. So a cross-country flight, up at 4am, land at 4pm, head to motel, all for the company- still payed 8 hours. The only time it got messed around were things like drive 4 hours to the client, 6 hours work, 4 hours back. We payed the entire thing as one travel day and 6 hours work.

There is no one-size-fits-all.
 

LEO2854

Esteemed Member
Location
Ma
I'm looking for some input on this issue...

Do employees need to be paid for travel time back to the shop at the end of the day if they are in a company van?

ie: get to the shop at 7:00, travel 30 minutes, work untill 3:30, then 30 minute travel back to the shop.

with a 1/2 hour lunch, is this an 8 hour day or an 8 1/2?

thanks

8.5Hours,,,16-7=9-0.5-8.5hours.:thumbsup:
 

LEO2854

Esteemed Member
Location
Ma
the place I used to work paid engineers straight time upto 40 hours per week and time and a half after 45. The 5 hours between 40 and 45 was unpaid. two guys got sent to itally one time and mostly due to flight delays ended up getting 87 hours of pay one week. Someone got offended by this and made a rule up that exempt employees could get no more than 8 hours of travel time paid in any one day. you can imagine how the people doing the traveling reacted. an amazing number of trips would start in the evening on one day and end the next day.

It does not matter if a trip starts in the evening and ends in the morning the hours still ad up 1 for 1.
 

cowboyjwc

Moderator
Staff member
Location
Simi Valley, CA
It does not matter if a trip starts in the evening and ends in the morning the hours still ad up 1 for 1.

and anything over your normal hours, in this case I'm assuming 8, is considered overtime. So if shop to shop is 8.5 hours then he should be getting 15 minutes of over time or comp time at least.

I work a 9 hour day so my overtime doesn't start until after 9 hours.
 

satcom

Senior Member
Definitive yes.


Had a buddy whi did landscaping years ago.............. he received his check at the end of the 40 hr. week. His check was for 20 hours................his employer did not pay traveling from job to job......not right.

satcom......."we pay the employee for every second he's in the company van"...........like it or not that's the way it should be..............(not if he's sleeping)...(sorry my union brother dudes who sleep on the job).

Well you better re-think that not if he's sleeping, if he is injured while sleeping in the van, and you are not paying him for the time in the van, you may end up paying his medical bills, in new Jersey your comp covers the medical so anytime in the van, sleeping, driving riding as an employee everyone in the van is covered under comp insurance
 

cmreschke

Senior Member
I can tell you here in Michigan from experience that I had a boss deduct half an hour every day for "drive" time. We worked 7-4 for 8 hours. I got laid off for a bad reason and decided to burn a bridge. I called dleg wage and hour division. They go back three years. Filled out all paperwork then they investigate. They audited his books found discrepencies,and assessed the situation. The contractor was fined my wages at time and one half, they were billed for the dleg inquiry. It is an unappealable determination. If you refuse to pay you will be billed and fined ct the state attorney generals office. If you still refuse then the fine you up to fifty thousand they start siezing your assets and potentially pull your licenses. They also have to prove that they made good on at least one current employees time sheets per case filed against them.
All in all I netted aprox 6000 dollars from 2.5 time and a half per week.
 

norcal

Senior Member
A friend used to work for a company doing field service for pre-hung door machinery all over the country, he would get paid at 1/2 of normal wages for "travel time". Rather poor way to treat people while they are away from home/family, IMHO.
 

Strathead

Senior Member
Location
Ocala, Florida, USA
Occupation
Electrician/Estimator/Project Manager/Superintendent
I didn't pick this up through the thread. In Florida, you must pay your employees from "portal to portal" as others have indicated. From where you are required to report to where you are required to finish. I have seen this requirement violated regularly at both Companies I have worked for. That said, this is something to keep in mind, and fair I think. If you have a job out of town, and wnat to help you employees without getting screwed, you can OFFER a ride. Require the employees to report to the job site. At their choice they can come to the shop or meet wherever and ride in a company vehicle to a dn from the job site. You will be required to pay the driverfor his travel time, but not the remainder of the riders.
 

petersonra

Senior Member
Location
Northern illinois
Occupation
engineer
It does not matter if a trip starts in the evening and ends in the morning the hours still ad up 1 for 1.

The point was that the day ended at midnight so a new 8 hour travel time window opened up.

For some reason if you left at noon and got to the hotel at 10 pm, you got 8 hours of pay for the 10 hours of travel. If you left at 4pm and got there at 2 am, you got 10 hours of travel pay for the same amount of travel time.

Even better there was an unofficial practice that if you got to the hotel after midnight you could claim 4 hours of travel time for the next day even if you got there at 12:15 am.
 

rcwilson

Senior Member
Location
Redmond, WA
Worked summers for a utility that served Montana, Idaho and Washington with dams on several rivers. When working at the more remote dams, we would stay in a bunk house and punch the time clock before climbing into the crew truck to the dam and would get paid for all travel time, including OT.

The best was when major work was under way at the dam in Montana, and we had to stay at the Idaho bunkhouse. Clock in and out in different time zones.

When I worked in electrical testing business, we paid for travel if you started at or returned to the office. Our employees' typical house to office commute was 30 minutes. The team (management + employees) picked freeway exits that were 30 minutes from the office. Jobs inside that "circle" we commuted to on our own time. Time clock started at the exits. Most employees drove company trucks and were on call at night. On call outs you were paid from when you left the house until you returned. Seattle traffic was making that system unworkable when I left the business.
 

DavidA

Member
Location
Fresno, CA
We pay employees driving company vehicles port to port unless they take the vehicle home then it's start to finish of work day. We also reimburse employees not using a company vehicle one way mileage after 15 miles from shop to jobsite. We include that cost for contract jobs and spell it out for T&M jobs and service work.
 
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