Unpaid Travel Time Class Action Lawsuit Investigation

Unpaid travel time: Who’s affected?

Does your employer require you to show up to a meeting point and then take a bus or van with other workers to the job site before you clock in? If so, you may be eligible to participate in an Unpaid Travel Time Class Action Lawsuit Investigation in at least the following states:

• Arkansas
• California
• Colorado
• Connecticut
• District of Columbia
• Illinois
• Maryland
• Minnesota
• Oregon
• Pennsylvania
• Washington
• Wisconsin

Federal and state laws prohibit employers from making employees perform unpaid work or work off the clock. However, unpaid work still does occur. In many instances, workers have to travel to their job sites or perform other functions before clocking in. Off-the-clock travel time and work can be common in industries such as construction and oil and gas, as well as many others. This travel time and work may be required by their employer, but the employees may not be getting paid.

Some examples of off-the-clock work include:

• Travel between parking and work sites
• Performing security checks at the start and end of every shift
• Donning uniforms or safety gear
• Shutting down facilities or equipment after a shift

In some instances, workers may have to perform off-the-clock work merely because a supervisor is not adequately aware of the legal implications of this work. In other instances, companies may try to use off-the-clock work as a way to extract extra profit from their employees. Off-the-clock work may occur in small increments, so workers may not lose much money in each instance. However, this time becomes more significant over the course of a worker’s career, leading to significant income loss.

In the case of a large company, thousands of workers may be performing off-the-clock work every day, meaning that the company may make significant financial gain from making workers perform off-the-clock work.

Federal and State Wage and Hour Laws

Federal law protects workers from performing unpaid work. The Fair Labor Standards Act ensures that workers have fair and safe working conditions. In particular, the FLSA ensures that workers will be paid fairly and in a timely manner for all work performed, but the Portal-to-Portal Act revisions to the FLSA place limits on what time is compensable.

Many states, such as those listed here, have wage and hour laws that do not impose in the limitations of the Portal-to-Portal Act. These states, therefore, provide even greater protection to workers for unpaid travel time. For instance, California has some of the strongest worker protection laws in the country and protects workers from performing off-the-clock work.

Workers in a number of states have filed unpaid labor lawsuits against their employers, and have been able to receive compensation for unpaid work, including travel time between work sites.

One such example occurred in a legal action against Vail Resorts, which settled a $13.1 million deal to settle five labor lawsuits, according to the Vail Daily. The amount was dispersed to more than 100,000 employees. Among the claims made in the lawsuit were that resort workers such as ski instructors, ticket sales employees, lift operators and others would spend a considerable amount of time traveling from resort parking lots up to the mountain to their work sites. Plus, employees had to spend time putting on and taking off snow gear for the job’s requirements.

In another example, Acosta Sales was hit with a $10 million settlement for not paying wages to merchandisers during their time of travel between store locations. Construction workers have also brought cases in states like Pennsylvania and Maryland to be paid for the time spent traveling on buses with other workers to the worksite. Some of these cases have already settled for millions of dollars.

Join an Unpaid Travel Time class action lawsuit investigation

If you were not paid for significant travel time between parking and work sites, or if you performed other off-the-clock work, you may be owed compensation. Both state and federal laws protect workers from performing unpaid off-the-clock work. Reach out to attorneys to see if you qualify to participate in an unpaid travel time class action lawsuit investigation.

If you were not paid for significant travel times between parking and work sites, or if you performed other off-the-clock work, you may qualify to participate in an unpaid travel time class action lawsuit investigation.

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