Dangers of letting non-exempt workers go home with cell phones
October 21, 2009 by Christian SchappelPosted in: Employment law, FLSA, In this week's e-newsletter - benefits, Latest News & Views, Pay and benefits
Non-exempt employees who respond to work-related e-mails and text messages after-hours must be paid for their time. That’s the message in a recent federal court decision.
A group of retail sales associates and supervisors just filed a lawsuit against their employer, T-Mobile USA, for back wages and unpaid OT.
They claimed they were required to use company-provided mobile devices to log into computer systems and respond to e-mail and text messages at “all hours of the day.”
The employees also alleged they were required to answer and make work-related phone calls, participate in conference calls and work off the clock during lunch breaks.
Does every minute count?
The Fair Labor Standards Act does make an exception — saying companies aren’t required to pay employees for these types of activities as long as the time spent performing them is de minimis. But the court will decide if that applies in this case.
One way to protect your company from these claims: Make sure your company has an “off-the-clock” policy requiring non-exempt employees to report all work time — no matter when it’s done.
Cite: Agui v. T-Mobile USA.
Tags: de minimis, fair labor standards act, lawsuit, non-exempt employees, T-Mobile, text messages
November 2nd, 2009 at 11:44 am
I’ve been trying to find this “de minimis” clause in the FLSA and have not been successful. Has anyone out there seen this? We do have non-exempt supervisors who occasionally answer their cell phones while off the clock. The calls are from the employees they oversee working the evening shift and last only 1-2 minutes.
It would be helpful to review and have a full understanding of this exception in case a supervisor should challenge it. My understanding is that (here in California anyway) if a non-exempt employee does any work, they must get paid a minimum of 2 hours. Getting paid for two hours to answer a two-minute phone call seems a bit excessive…