Suffer or Permit to Work
The FLSA defines the term "employ" to include the words
"suffer or permit to work". Suffer or permit to work means that if an
employer requires or allows employees to work, the time spent is generally
hours worked.
Thus, time spent doing work not requested by the employer, but still
allowed, is generally hours worked, since the employer knows or has reason to
believe that the employees are continuing to work and the employer is
benefiting from the work being done. This time is commonly referred to as
"working off the clock." If you would like to review an example of
suffer or permit to work, please click here.
Rework
When an employee must correct mistakes in his or her work, the
time must be treated as hours worked. The correction of errors, or
"rework", is hours worked, even when the employee voluntarily does
the rework.
Waiting for Work
Time which an employee is required to be at work or allowed to
work for his or her employer is hours worked. A person hired to do nothing or
to do nothing but wait for something to do or something to happen is still
working. The Supreme Court has stated that employees subject to the FLSA must
be paid for all the time spent in "physical or mental exertion (whether
burdensome or not) controlled or required by the employer and pursued
necessarily and primarily for the benefit of the employer of his
business."
Place of Work
Hours worked include all the time during which an employee is
required or allowed to perform work for an employer, regardless of where the
work is done, whether on the employers premises, at a designated work
place, at home or at some other location.
It is the duty of management to exercise control and see that work is not
performed if the employer does not want it to be performed. An employer cannot
sit back and accept the benefits of an employees work without considering
the time spent to be hours worked. Merely making a rule against such work is
not enough. The employer has the power to enforce the rule and must make every
effort to do so. Employees generally may not volunteer to perform work without
the employer having to count the time as hours worked.
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