Should You Get Paid for Travel Time

My question involves employment and labor law for the state of: Michigan

I currently work from home and have to travel to different job sites in surrounding cities for service. Currently my employer does not pay the first and last hour of travel. If they consider my home my "office" shouldn't I be paid travel?

Are you working at home for their benefit or your own?

First question, are you exempt or non-exempt?

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Quoting JPC1984

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My question involves employment and labor law for the state of: Michigan

I currently work from home and have to travel to different job sites in surrounding cities for service. Currently my employer does not pay the first and last hour of travel. If they consider my home my "office" shouldn't I be paid travel?

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The are probably very conservatively following the IRS regs for people in your type of position. Quite often, in a work from home situation, particularly if there is an actual office somewhere in the area for the business, travel from home to the first stop of the day, and travel from the last stop of the day to home are considered to be "commuting" miles and therefore are not deductible. However, out of town travel generally IS deductible. I suspect that they are applying the "one hour" as the "commute".

I am not sure that I agree with their analysis in your particular situation, but I do suspect that is how they are analyzing the situation.

If the employee is exempt, then there are no laws requiring that he be paid travel time at all. If he is non-exempt, there is no legal significance to the first or last hour of travel time; the law spells out what is to be paid and what need not be paid.

I think llworking is alluding to these general rules:

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Quoting Compensable Time Under the FLSA - Travel Time

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Home to Work Travel: An employee who travels from home before the regular workday and returns to his/her home at the end of the workday is engaged in ordinary home to work travel, which is not work time.

Home to Work on a Special One Day Assignment in Another City: An employee who regularly works at a fixed location in one city is given a special one day assignment in another city and returns home the same day. The time spent in traveling to and returning from the other city is work time, except that the employer may deduct/not count that time the employee would normally spend commuting to the regular work site.

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The complaint may translate to, "I normally work from home, but my employer is treating the one hour drive from my home to the company office as the time I would spend commuting to my regular work site", but it would help to have more details. I'll note, if that's the 'problem' the company could solve it by saying, "Okay, from now on you work here at the office building."

I'm sure that's what's she's referring to, but without considerably more detail it's pointless to speculate. And I'm not sure the employer's analysis is relevant to the legality of the situation in any case.

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Quoting cbg

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First question, are you exempt or non-exempt?

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Sorry I'm non-exempt.

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Quoting Mr. Knowitall

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I think llworking is alluding to these general rules:

The complaint may translate to, "I normally work from home, but my employer is treating the one hour drive from my home to the company office as the time I would spend commuting to my regular work site", but it would help to have more details. I'll note, if that's the 'problem' the company could solve it by saying, "Okay, from now on you work here at the office building."

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They are located in a different state, I have no official "office" to report to, other than my home.

http://www.dol.gov/whd/regs/compliance/whdfs22.htm

I guess my confusion is it states from home however my home is also my office.