Executive Summary: The Wage and Hour Division of the Department of Labor (DOL) issued two opinion letters today, April 12, 2018. One opinion addressed when employers must pay employees for travel time away from their homes and the second dealt with compensability of rest breaks covered by the Family and Medical Leave Act (FMLA). Essentially, the DOL stated that employers are not required to pay for travel time where an employee has no regular working hours if the employer uses one of the permissible methods for identifying the employee’s normal working hours in determining whether travel time is compensable. In another opinion, the DOL addressed the issue of FMLA-protected employees who need fifteen-minute breaks every hour. The DOL concluded that such large, frequent break times were non-compensable under both the FLSA and the FMLA because the breaks predominantly benefitted the employee. It noted, however, that these FMLA-protected employees must be compensated for break time provided to all employees, such as two fifteen-minute breaks per day.
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