When Does A Workday Begin? When Does It End?

In these cases, the Court addressed whether employees in meat and poultry processing plants must be paid for non-productive time they spend walking from locker rooms where they are required to don protective clothing and equipment, to the meat or poultry processing floor where they perform their work, and for the time they spend walking back to the locker rooms from the processing floor. In Tum, the Court also addressed whether time spent waiting in line to put on the protective clothing or to take it off was compensable. These cases turned on the application of Section 4(a) of the Portal-to-Portal Act of 1947, 29 U.S.C. '254(a), which excludes from the FLSA time spent walking, riding, or traveling to and from the location of the employee's principal work activity as well as other preliminary and postliminary activities.

In a unanimous decision, the Court held that the Portal Act does not apply to the walking that occurs between the time the employees put on the protective equipment and when they take it off or to the waiting time prior to taking off the equipment at the end of the day. The Court, however, held that the waiting time prior to donning the gear at the start of the day was excluded from the FLSA by the Portal Act. The Court's decision turned on a “continuous workday” analysis. As discussed in greater detail below, the Court held that the workday in these cases began and ended with the donning and doffing of protective equipment and clothing since those activities were “integral and indispensable” to the employees' work and that the walking and waiting time that occurred during this continuous workday was compensable. The Court further held that the waiting time prior to donning the clothing at the start of the day was a preliminary activity within the meaning of the Portal Act since it came before the start of the “continuous workday” and therefore was not compensable.