Employee Agreement Cannot Waive FLSA Right to Travel Time

An employee cannot agree to waive rights to minimum wage or overtime for travel time associated with refueling and maintaining construction equipment when such work is "integral and indispensable" to the principal activities for which he or she was hired, the Tenth Circuit rules. It remands a case brought by welders working on oil and gas pipelines after determining that the jury was instructed erroneously that a mutual agreement regarding travel time compensation could waive the employees' rights to overtime for time spent returning from refueling and restocking welding rigs.

If the employees "travel time was integral and indispensable to the principle activities for which they were hired, no mutual agreement could waive the application of the FLSA minimum wage and overtime provisions to that work," the court says.  It rejects the employer's assertion that travel time associated with maintaining rented rigs can be allocated to a rental fee rather than wages, explaining that this argument would "substantially undermine the purposes of the FLSA by creating loopholes susceptible to significant abuse."  (July 2, 1998 Daily Labor Report)

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