petersonra, there is a respectable time allocated for travel especially if wages remain, this travel issue is the main reason for staying out of town compared to travel and hiring local for out of town work - the foreman or owner has the right to be the pacesetter for travel time.
If a crew lags almost a full hour past what’s normal and acceptable take time to add this crew's total wages, don't forget the burdens, multiply this result times quantity of trips the result is not petty it's profit loss. A crew that functions like this needs to be let go! Others with good work ethic are trying hard to produce effectively, they feel good about positive job recaps, they won’t appreciate the selfish gut shooting the project labor either.
Travel should be scrutinized - just like installing an item - workers should know this and be prepared to explain if it takes longer than normal or expected.
We do not know the actual circumstances of the travel taking longer. If the owner is only willing to pay for 1.75 hours of travel versus the 2.25 hours the employees are actually taking, he should just say so to his employees, rather than whining about it on a forum.
To me, it is a no brainer to pay for a motel when the one way travel time is this long. I bet the guy doing the complaining would expect his employees to share a room too.
I bet he will complain about how much they spend on food on his nickle too.
The thing is that IMO it is the job of the employer to determine the work standards that employees are to follow and clearly communicate them to the employees. It is unfair to not set such standards and then whine about it after the fact.
if the employer is too cheap to pay for the time the employees might spend stopping along the way for coffee or potty breaks, he should say so up front.
To me it would be more than fair for the employer to agree he will pay 1.5 hours each way of travel time, since it does not appear like there is any requirement he actually pay anything at all. OTOH, there has to be some kind of inducement that will encourage his employees to actually do this. 90 minutes each way seems fair to me.
I would point out that with paying 3 hours a day of extra pay, the employer is getting into an issue with OT being an issue. Instead of paying it out as X number of hours, he might want to just declare it as a fixed bonus amount per day, so that he does not have to pay OT on those hours.