No, it’s not a “commute”. Commute is from home to workplace. This is from one worksite to another. Pretty much this is always on the clock.
Reread the OP. They aren’t expecting to get paid for their travel time to the original job site. The arrive at the the company and the company sends them out in a company vehicle to other locations.
If they didn’t want to pay for that time they should require the OP arrive at the end location through their own means.
The situation described would be like telling a UPS employee they didn’t get paid for the time in the truck only the time running packages up the driveways.
To the OP it really depends on how bad you need the money. If you have no other options and the adjusted total rate is still worth it, you keep a log and get by till your in a better position to be without the job and sue them.
If you don’t need the job and would rather have the money owed to you now, you give the labor board a call and go from there.
I would ask myself:
a) How much are they going to pay me?
b) How much of my time do I need to devote to this?
c) Is is it worth it, compared to my alternatives?
And then the decision should be obvious.
This is still illegal. Once you arrive at work, if your employer requires you to travel to another job site, that travel is on the clock. It’s not off the clock until you leave the job site to go home.
I’m not sure about the legal requirements for expense reimbursements for the costs involved in using your own vehicle, however.
Because travel from job site to job site during the workday is work time and must be counted as hours worked under the Fair Labor Standards Act.
I can tell you that they said if I drive my own vehicle, I’m paid my $19/hr but not compensated for mileage.
I am angry on your behalf, but not surprised. My husband dealt with some very unscrupulous people while working with temp agencies. It’s the nature of the beast.
The businesses use temps at their companies because they don’t want to pay a real employee’s benefits and/or because the job conditions are so bad that no one will stay. The agencies could care less about how you’re treated because they can just call up somebody else who will put up with the crap because they need the work.
It sucks and I hate it for you. I hope you find something better soon.
BTW, in case you are thinking that you would need a lawyer and that’s a financial concern, usually when you complain to a state Department of Labor, you do not need to hire a lawyer. They have staff attorneys and investigators. You just make a complaint and eventually give a statement, maybe testify somewhere down the line if it comes to that.
I’d have to know what state you are in to point you to the right agency and give you more specific information.
I don’t need help with that. Thanks, though.
I see four options:
- Suck it up because you need the money.
- Take the job, carefully document when exactly you worked and what you got paid for, then sue the balls of them later (or, possibly, blackmail them into some kind of favorable treatment).
- Turn down the job for unspecified reasons, so you’ll continue to get offers from the temp agency.
- E-mail the employment agency, saying something like “I just want to clear things up, since I had a confusing phone conversation. I am getting paid for that travel time in the company vehicle, right?”. Do it in e-mail, so there’s a written record of whatever they say (you don’t think it’s an accident that they told you this over the phone, on lunch hour, do you?). Most likely, they may decide right then and there you’re a troublemaker and never offer you another job, or they may take it at face value and just quietly move you to a different job. Unless you’re really lucky and they e-mail you back confirming you don’t get paid for the travel, in which case you’re back to the above options except you might be able to skip right to the blackmail, because you’ve got it in writing (this is when you move back to phone calls: “Gosh, this is different from my understanding of labor laws. Should I forward that e-mail to the state Labor Department to ask them, or will you find me a better job?”
Depending on how long I thought I’d be in a relationship with the temp agency, and whether I thought I had any leverage with them at all, I might go with 2), pretending I never got the phone call, but still carefully documenting everything. That gives you the option of playing dumb afterwards “But the contract doesn’t say anything about not getting paid for travel, and isn’t that required by law?”
Quercus,
For clarity, I had worked for two days PRIOR to being informed of this policy. That included multiple hours of travel time. There was NO disclaimer of this policy made before hire.
Another vote for “quiet word with the staffing agency”. Travel to your first work site of the day is generally not compensable under the “coming and going” (or “going and coming”, depending on your local conventions) rule*. Travel between work sites after that almost invariably is.
*having said that, if you are required to drive six hours to your first work site of the day, it almost certainly falls outside the “normal commuting area” and also becomes compensable.
For the record, the range is wider than I thought.
There’s a trip this week that’s 3 hours each way.
Just to clarify, when you say “staffing agency”, are you talking about a PEO/labor pool arrangement? Or is it a hiring broker arrangement? In other words, are you a direct employee of the agency?
Print up the relevant sections of the FLSA and highlight the specific bits as well as the penalties. Give that to your temp agency. If they don’t immediately reverse course, quit the contract and find a new temp agency.
You’re being used like old clean-up rag in an outhouse.
Where’s the controversy?
Make your choice; You will work without being paid for travel time, or You won’t.
I wouldn’t fight with the agency, simply decline the job. Be honest. “Sometimes it’s 3 hrs travel time! It’s just not worth it. Thanks anyway, for thinking of me though.” Believe me, they’ve heard it before. In fact, they may have shopped this job around, to a few people, before you!
No time like the present for them to understand that you don’t do these kind of jobs. You accept this treatment, and I expect they’ll be sending you out on every scummy job with a ‘compromise’. Do you want to be that guy?
If not, step up, make your choice, be honest and open. Seems like the only choice to me.
Whether you are an employee or an independent contractor makes a big difference here in terms of the legality. But since you weren’t told ahead of time you can bill for any time spent in travel before you were informed of the terms. Once you knew about the terms, if you kept working, that’s a tacit approval. But the key here will be whether or not you are and employee of either the staffing company or the client company. As an employee they have to pay you.
I’m pretty sure that ‘tacit approval’ does not exempt the company from having to pay wages that are required by law. Basically, the law doesn’t care whether or not *you *care if you’re being paid; if the law requires compensation, then you must be compensated. Period.
He’s definitely not an independent contractor. He’s being paid on an hourly basis.