Can Employees be Required to Wash Company Vehicles Off-the-Clock
An employer allows its employees to drive company work vehicles home at the end of the day, so that they can respond directly to work sites in the morning. The company recently announced that it expects employees to keep the vehicles clean, and to wash the vehicles as necessary -- at home and on their own time. When an employee asked why they were not being paid to wash the vehicles, he was told that he had two choices: Keep the vehicle clean as instructed, or leave the truck at work at the end of the day and drive his own car to and from the workplace for his shifts. The employees are hourly and non-exempt.
Is the employer allowed to make the employees wash the trucks without pay?
Re: Can Employees be Required to Wash Company Vehicles Off-the-Clock
It boils down to this: Is it a better deal for the employee to drive the truck home, or to be paid for the time it takes to periodically wash the vehicle? Let's assume that the employee is correct, and that the employer will be ordered to pay if a wage complaint is filed: if the result of that is the employer's requiring all employees to leave their vehicles at the workplace at the end of their shifts, will he be better off or will he regret his actions?
If I were representing the employer, I would come up with a better plan than this; but I'm not. I suspect that they would be ordered to pay for the fifteen minutes or so it takes to wash the vehicle, but the employees may not like the outcome of such a determination.