Mass-Peculiarities: An Employers Guide to Wage & Hour Law in the Bay State 2022 Edition

24 | Massachusetts Wage & Hour Peculiarities, 2022 ed. © 2022 Seyfarth Shaw LLP reports to the specified location and including the subsequent travel to and from the work site. 99 • If an employee is “required or directed to travel from one place to another after the beginning of or before the close of a work day,” the employer must compensate the employee for all travel time and for associated travel expenses. 100 b. Overnight Travel When travel keeps an employee away from home overnight, only a certain portion of the time spent out of town will be compensable. All travel time that occurs during an employee’s regular workday is “clearly worktime” because “[t]he employee is simply substituting travel for other duties.” 101 This rule is applicable not only to the employee’s regular working days, but also to the corresponding hours on non-working days. Therefore, “if an employee regularly works from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. from Monday through Friday,” travel time during those hours on the employee’s non-working days (Saturday and Sunday) will be considered working time for which the employee must be compensated. 102 The U.S. Department of Labor (DOL) has stated that with respect to enforcing the travel time regulations, it “will not consider as worktime that time spent in travel away from home outside of regular working hours as a passenger on an airplane, train, boat, bus, or automobile.” 103 Massachusetts regulations explicitly adopt the DOL’s position. 104 Therefore, employers need not compensate employees for time spent traveling outside of their regular working hours when the employees are away from home for at least one overnight. If, however, an employee is required to do work while traveling, all time spent performing the work must be compensated. 105 Employers are not obligated to pay employees for a regular meal period during overnight travel. 106 c. Travel in a Company Vehicle In most circumstances, travel in a company-provided vehicle does not transform ordinary commuting time into compensable working time. Thus, an employer is not required to 99 454 C.M.R. § 27.04(4)(c). However, commut ing t ime does not become compensable where an employee t ravels to a locat ion other than his or her work site in order to take opt ional company t ransportation from that location to the work site. For example, where an employer offers employees rides on a boat used to haul equipment to an island work site that is also accessible by public t ransportation, the t ime spent t raveling on the boat is not compensable. DLS Opinion Let ter MW-2002-007 (Mar. 7, 2002). See also DLS Opinion Let ter MW-2002-016 (May 6, 2002) (opining that where employees have opt ion of t raveling direct ly to work site or commut ing to main office to t ravel in company t ruck to work site, t ravel t ime is not compensable because it is opt ional). 100 454 C.M.R. § 27.04(4)(d); 29 C.F.R. § 785.38. For example, if employees are required to begin work at the employer’s main office to load t rucks before t raveling to their work site in a different locat ion, the t ravel t ime from the main office to the work site is compensable. DLS Opinion Let ter MW-2002-016 (May 6, 2002). 101 29 C.F.R. § 785.39; 454 C.M.R. § 27.04(4)(e) (applying requirement s of 29 C.F.R. § 785.39 to overnight t ravel). 102 29 C.F.R. § 785.39. See also DLS Opinion Let ter MW-2002-012 (Apr. 17, 2002). 103 29 C.F.R. § 785.39. 104 454 C.M.R. § 27.04(4)(e) (adopt ing provisions of 29 C.F.R. § 785.39). 105 29 C.F.R. § 785.41. 106 29 C.F.R. § 785.39.