Pay for travel time?

[chinabloo]

What is the name of your state? Ohio

My husband just started a new job. He will be a salaried employee making $36K. While he's training, they are paying him the equivalent hourly wage plus time and a half over 40 hours.

He spent from 12:30 pm until 11:30 pm on a Sunday travelling from Cincinnati to Houston where he is being trained. Because he's hourly at this point, should he be paid for his travel time as if he were working?

He doesn't want to ask his superiors about this for fear of making someone mad. Since he has to travel back home next week and then go back to Houston for another 2 weeks after that, this time/money could really add up.

 

[JETX]

"He spent from 12:30 pm until 11:30 pm on a Sunday travelling from Cincinnati to Houston where he is being trained. Because he's hourly at this point, should he be paid for his travel time as if he were working?"
*** Most employers don't pay travel time for new-hire training, but an accurate answer would need a review of the employer travel policies.
(Why did it take him ELEVEN hours to get to Houston. I can do that in less than four!!!)

"He doesn't want to ask his superiors about this for fear of making someone mad. Since he has to travel back home next week and then go back to Houston for another 2 weeks after that, this time/money could really add up."
*** Then he needs to ask, doesn't he??

 

[HomeGuru]

"He spent from 12:30 pm until 11:30 pm on a Sunday travelling from Cincinnati to Houston where he is being trained. Because he's hourly at this point, should he be paid for his travel time as if he were working?"
*** Most employers don't pay travel time for new-hire training, but an accurate answer would need a review of the employer travel policies.
(Why did it take him ELEVEN hours to get to Houston. I can do that in less than four!!!)

**A: he went by way of New York.

 

[Beth3]

What's not clear here is whether they're treating him as an exempt employee PLUS paying OT voluntarily. Just because they're electing to pay him OT doesn't mean that he's hourly. If he were absent a half-day due to illness, would they dock his pay? If so, then they are paying him on an hourly basis. If not, then they're paying him a fixed weekly income (i.e. salary) plus OT which means he does not have to be compensated for travel time unless they wish to.

What your husband needs to do is to ask his employer if they're going to compensate him for travel time. It's a simple, straight-forward question. I don't see why he needs to worry about making someone angry just by asking.

 

[mlp's mom]

If he is indeed being treated hourly, i.e. they would deduct as given in Beth3's example, then they must pay him for the travel time that occurs during his regular work hours.

For example, if he would normal work M - F from 8 to 5 pm, then he would be owed travel time from 12:30 to 5 pm minus any meal times. It doesn't matter what day the travel time occurs, only what hours the travel time occurs.

If he is salaried, i.e. they don't dock his pay for missing half a day, then he is paid to get the job done and not subject to travel time pay.

As far as JETX reply that "Most employers don't pay travel time for new-hire training" I would challenge that reply as that practice is illegal.

See 29 CFR 785.27 - 785.32 for information regarding time spent in training sessions. See 29 CFR 785-33 - 785.41 as well as the Portal-to-Portal Act for payment of travel time.

 

[Beth3]

For non-exempt employees, travel time is compensible when it occurs during the employee's regular hours of work or outside of the employee's regular hours of work but on a scheduled workday. If an employee travels on an overnight trip, the employee need only be paid for the travel time (excluding meal periods) which occurs during regular hours of work or on a Saturday, Sunday, or holiday. An employee is not required to be paid for traveling outside of working hours when he/she is a passenger on an airplane, train, boat, bus or automobile.

All that may be moot, depending on the applicable State law. Mine requires that all travel time be paid. Period.

However, we haven't yet established whether chinabloo's husband is being paid on an exempt or non-exempt basis.

 

[chinabloo]

Clarification

It took him 11 hours to get to Houston due to weather delays in Chicago which is where his connection was through.

Anyway...He definitely is being paid hourly during training. (He put in 36 hours Monday through Friday last week and was paid for 36). What makes things more complicated is that he doesn't have a "normal" work schedule. He's training for a restaurant GM position which means a different schedule every week with the potential to work Saturday and Sunday.

I'll try to talk him into asking what the policy is.

Thanks everyone!

 

[Beth3]

If he's definitely being paid hourly, then he MUST be paid for his travel time as required by federal law, which I've explained above. It's also possible your State law on this (if there is one) is more generous than the federal law and if so, his employer must comply with that.

You may contact the Ohio Department of Commerce - Wage and Hour Bureau to find out what Ohio's regs are on this.

 

[chinabloo]

Thanks

Thanks again for your help!