06

What counts as hours worked: suffer or permit, waiting time, and travel

Chapters 1 through 5 settled who is exempt and how the wage floor is calculated. This chapter settles a quieter question that decides the size of every paycheck: which minutes of a worker’s day actually count.

In this chapter

• +An employer who knows work is happening must either stop it or pay for it — a rule against the employer, not the worker.
• +Whether waiting, on-call, or break time counts as hours worked turns on who controls the employee’s time, not on what the schedule calls it.
• +Commuting is normally unpaid, but travel that happens within the workday, on an emergency call, or on a special out-of-town assignment usually is not.