In Su v. East Penn Manufacturing, the Department of Labor sued East Penn Manufacturing alleging the company failed to pay wages for time spent by non-exempt employees changing into uniforms, donning and doffing PPE. The DOL alleged these activities were integral and indispensable.
Saturday, March 13, 2021
Employers recognize that the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) requires that they pay nonexempt employees overtime wages for all hours worked in excess of 40 hours in a workweek. Additionally, the FLSA imposes recordkeeping requirements on employers regarding the hours worked by their nonexempt employees. A recent Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals decision,
Background
Five Star Automatic Fire Protection, LLC, employed 53 construction workers who would travel to client sites to install and/or repair fire protection equipment. Construction employees typically worked from 7:00 a.m. to 3:30 p.m. The company’s personnel policy required employees to record all the hours they worked. However, testimony from employees uniformly reflected that they were required to show up between 15 and 30 minutes before the start of their shifts at 7:00 a.m. and/or were either explicitly or impliedly told that they could not record their time prior to 7:00 a.m. Additiona