Labor Law -- 2005



Tum v. Barber Foods, Inc.   (U.S. Supreme Court)

Pay for changing clothes

The Supreme Court 11/8/05 held that under the Fair Labor Standards Act (“FLSA”) and Portal-to-Portal Act, employers must compensate their employees for pre- and post-shift time spent donning or doffing employer-required clothing or equipment and time spent walking between such clothing and equipment stations and the employees’ work areas; compensation for time spent waiting at clothing and equipment stations is not required, however. Regulations promulgated under the Portal-to-Portal Act adopted the “continuous workday rule,” which provides that an employee’s compensable “workday” includes all time from commencement to completion of the employee’s “principal activity or activities.” The Portal-to-Portal Act nevertheless excepts from the FLSA’s coverage time spent on activities “preliminary or postliminary” to the employee’s principal activity. Justice Stevens, writing for a unanimous Court, reiterated the Court’s earlier holding that donning or doffing required equipment constitutes an “integral and indispensable part of the [employee’s] principal activities” and therefore is a compensable part of the workday. Moreover, under the continuous workday rule, time then spent walking between the clothing or equipment station and the employee’s work area also necessarily constitutes part of the compensable workday. Time spent simply waiting to don the first piece of clothing or equipment does not qualify as an “integral or indispensable part of the principal activity,” however, and therefore is not required to be compensated. The decision in these consolidated cases is important to any business whose employees must pick up and/or wear certain clothing or equipment in order to perform their jobs.

The NAM, the American Chicken Council and the American Meat Institute filed an amicus brief urging the Supreme Court to review the IBP case.

On 8/1/05, the NAM joined with the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, the Society for Human Resources Management and the Association of International Automobile Manufacturers in a brief on the merits.

See also Case #03-1238, IBP v. Alvarez