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Lawsuits Define "Work"
- 8/11/2009Last month, three current and former employees sued T-Mobile USA Inc., claiming they were required to use company-issued smart phones to respond to work messages after hours without pay.
In a March suit, a former CB Richard Ellis Group Inc. maintenance worker seeks pay for time spent after hours receiving and responding to messages on a work-issued cell phone.
"This is about 'What is work?'" says Dan McCoy, an employment lawyer and partner at Fenwick & West LLP who isn't involved in either case. The federal Fair Labor Standards Act says employees must be paid for work performed off the clock, even if the work was voluntary. When the law was passed in 1938, "work" was easy to define for hourly employees, says McCoy. As the workplace changed, so did the rules for when workers should be paid.
The two cases come amid other disputes over when employees should be paid. A California appeals court recently reinstated a suit by employees of medical-technology provider Lincare Inc. seeking compensation for time spent answering customer questions by phone while on call. Lincare didn't respond to calls for comment.
Subsequent court decisions have interpreted the law to require some hourly employees to be paid for putting on and taking off work uniforms, like police gear, and for time spent while booting up computers, says Audrey Mross, a partner and head of the labor and employment division at Munck Carter LLP in Dallas.
More recently, workers and their advocates have sought to apply the law to cover time driving to and from assignments off company property.
Read the full story at wsj.com.
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