Employees Not Paid for Drive Time

If your employer requires you to ride in their vehicle, or your access into a worksite can only occur with an insured 4-wheel drive, or vehicle your employer owns, you should be paid for the time riding in the employer's vehicle. This comes up a lot when working on oil leases. It also comes up when nonexempt hourly workers are travelling to far away job sites that frequently change. While an employee's regular commute into work, at a fixed location, is not something an employer must pay for, things are different if the job location changes daily. The Employment Lawyers Group is very experienced in construction sites, oil fields, and associated labor laws whether it is pay, dangerous working conditions, or something else.

According to the law, California employers must pay employees for all time the employee is under the employer's control. This is true if the employee is riding in employer provided transportation. Sometimes these are vehicles used to access a jobsite once the employee has parked their vehicle outside the jobsite. Other situations occur when one employee drives the employer's vehicle loaded with tools and equipment and another rides along.

The situation is more than mere control when the employee is transporting work equipment to a job site. While the mere transportation of personal tools in one own's vehicle might not count, driving all of the supplies to perform a plumbing job and the required tools is the actually performance of work for the employer. The driving of a company vehicle with tools and equipment is compensable time worked the employer must pay for. The mere driving of a company vehicle for the employee's convenience, or as a perk does not necessarily make the drive compensable.

The Employment Lawyers Group has also handled cases in which drive time home is not paid. This is generally a highly factual issues that involves the last location worked during the day, its distance from the employee's home, and its distance from the employer's regular work location. In order to find out if a legal violation exists that justifies a lawsuit, employees need to reach out to an experienced employee expense reimbursement lawyer. (661) 412-9600

Workers Not Paid for Out of Town Travel

Hourly employees should be paid for excessive travel to an employer's unusual work location. For instance, if the employer has taken a job 100 miles away from the location the employee regularly reports into, or a job the employee must fly to at the expense of the employer, the employee needs to be compensated.

Employer policies that the employee's report into work is not compensable for wages or mileage at their office, yard, or a common workplace are valid if the employee is not transporting materials there that they bought elsewhere. However, things can get very tricky when the employee starts at the employer's place of business but ends the day elsewhere. Again, the actual distance from the normal workplace matters.

Employees Are Owed Expenses When Out of Town for Their Employer

Employees must be paid all reasonable and necessary expenses incurred while carrying out their job. This often includes mileage. It may include costs of eating away from home. If it is reasonable to get a motel or hotel room, that is compensable. Parking fees should be reimbursed. Employers are not liable for parking tickets or traffic tickets the employee incurs unless the employer required them to break the law. For example, if an employer insisted that a trucker drive a truck that exceeded DOT limits or the limits of the vehicle the employer should be liable when the employee is fined.

The Employment Lawyers Group has handled quite a few cases in which truckers have not been reimbursed for things like oil, wood to chalk, and overnight fees. For persons in the construction and/or apartment management business, the law firm has handled many cases involving the employer's failure to reimburse for supplies, and often mileage driving around picking up supplies. In fact the Employment Lawyers Group created law, through an appeal, about apartment maintenance employees needing to be paid at least minimum wage while picking up supplies as well as the right to mileage reimbursements.