Issue link: https://read.dmtmag.com/i/314292
16 • JUNE 2014 • WORLD FENCE NEWS What is fair pay for employee travel time? BY TOM LUBY, PRESIDENT, PROFIT BUILDERS INTERNATIONAL high as almost double the minimum wage, that can squeeze profits very tight. My client also has a branch in Ames, Iowa, home of the Iowa State Cyclones. One of the issues he faces is staffing both locations and working out of town jobs. Northern Iowa is not a very populous place and has limited fencing opportunities, so my client often has to travel for work, which leads me to the topic of my current ar- ticle: When do you have to pay your workers for their travel time? I had researched and written about this topic many years ago, first for one of my clients on the West Coast and then for an article for World Fence News. I did a bit of research into my old notes and think some of my origi- nal findings in that report may bear re- peating. The laws concerning compensable working hours can be confusing, to say the least, but the fair and accurate determination of compensable work- ing hours is a major concern in the fencing industry for both employer and employee alike. And the laws apply to both hourly and salaried em- ployees. In the fence industry, one of the most troublesome and difficult to un- derstand compensation issues is work time and travel time, both to and from work and/or job sites and travel during the work day. Some of the issues of concern re- garding compensable working hours range from time spent picking up sup- plies or waiting in line at the whole- sale yard to time spent driving to and from work or a work site to time spent attending training classes such as the AFA Field Training School. Some years back, because of the high degree of concern by so many of my clients in this area, I researched the applicable laws and, while I am not a lawyer and therefore the information contained in this article is not legal ad- vice but merely FYI, I found many in- teresting and noteworthy opinions concerning compensable travel time. My sources of information are the U.S. DOL and the Fair Labor Stan- dards Act (FLSA) of 1947, and the amendment commonly referred to as the "Portal-to-Portal" Act. The Fair Labor Standards Act and the Portal-to-Portal Amendment In the application of the minimum wage and overtime compensation pro- visions of the Fair Labor Standards A few months ago I visited a client in Iowa. I was there just after FenceTech 2014 and talk about flat, lonely, and cold – wow, I'm glad I live in sunny Florida! There are great peo- ple there, however – the best in the world. You can't beat the Midwest for good hearted people. Also, I never realized what a huge corn growing state Iowa is. According to the U.S. Dept. of Agriculture, Iowa and Illinois, the top corn-producing states, typically account for slightly more than one-third of the U.S. crop. Another fact that struck me as in- teresting is that when the price of corn skyrocketed a few years back, reach- ing record highs in 2012, it shot the earning potential through the roof for the entire region and forced unem- ployment down to one of the lowest in America. Who knew? It was good for the local economy but tough on local business owners who saw the average wage of even entry level fencers increase to keep pace with the local market. Finding good workers is tough anywhere in the U.S., but when the starting wage for laborers can go as continued on page 18