The Law and Hours Worked - Public

The Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) defines the term “employ” as including the words “suffer or permit to work”. This means that any time an employer requires or allows an employee to work is considered as “hours worked”.

This means that time an employee spends performing work that benefits the employer is hours worked, even if the employer did not require the work be performed. Central to this argument is that the employer “allowed” the work since the employer knew or should have known work was being done.

Such items as:
• “Rework” or correcting prior work is considered hours worked.
• Time required to be present at work, even if no work is assigned, is considered as hours worked. The United States Supreme Court stated that employees subject to the FLSA must be paid for all the time spent in “physical or mental exertion controlled or required by the employer and pursued necessarily and primarily for the benefit of the employer or his business.”
• Work performed away from the place of business if the employer allows it. This includes home, car, any work location, or any other place work is performed.

The U. S. Department of Labor states that “It is the duty of management to exercise control and see that work is not performed if the employer does not want it to be performed. An employer cannot sit back and accept the benefits of an employee’s work without considering the time spent to be hours worked. Merely making a rule against such work is not enough. The employer has the power to enforce the rule and must make every effort to do so.”

These rules apply to both straight time and overtime work.