The Law at Work: What are ‘hours worked’ that must be paid?
California work orders regulating wages and hours define “hours worked” as “the time during which an employee is subject to the control of an employer, and includes all the time the employee is suffered or permitted to work, whether or not required to do so.”
Determining hours for which an employee must be paid generally is straightforward. But what if, instead of driving his own car for work-related purposes, an employee exercises the option his employer gives him to drive a company-provided vehicle, with company-provided tools and equipment and with company-imposed limitations on his use of the vehicle, from home to a worksite where he uses the tools in the vehicle to perform his job? In his The Law at Work column in the San Diego Union-Tribune, Shareholder Dan Eaton examines Hernandez v. Pacific Bell Telephone Co. to explain that employees were not entitled to be paid for time spent voluntarily driving a company vehicle from home to their first worksite.
View the full article here.