Hourly employees required to store materials at home
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Hourly employees required to store materials at home
Good afternoon, I’m an hourly
employee who works as a
merchandiser for a sales and
marketing company. We routinely have
to accept, store and transport a small
amount of work related materials as
part of the job. However, we were
recently required to accept, store until
installation date 7 days and
transport 10 or more large 35 pound
boxes of store fixture materials without
any additional compensation. Our
workday doesn’t start until we arrive at
our first stop for installation. Is it within
their rights as our employer to require
hourly employees to have to do this?
We’ve been told we can document the
time it takes to load them into our cars
but not the time transporting them to
the first stop. Thank you very much.
Asked on June 19, 2016 under Employment Labor Law, Texas
Answers:
M.D., Member, California and New York Bar / FreeAdvice Contributing Attorney
Answered 8 years ago | Contributor
Actually, your employer is correct. You can document the time it takes to load the materials into your car but not the time transporting them to the first stop. The reason is that the time spent loading constitutes work time, even if it conducted off site, and and all work time is compensable. However, time to commute to a job site is not considered to be work time, even if you are transporting work materials.
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