[Code of Federal Regulations]
[Title 29, Volume 4]
[Revised as of July 1, 2008]
From the U.S. Government Printing Office via GPO Access
[CITE: 29CFR1620.4]

[Page 310]
 
                             TITLE 29--LABOR
 
          CHAPTER XIV--EQUAL EMPLOYMENT OPPORTUNITY COMMISSION
 
PART 1620_THE EQUAL PAY ACT--Table of Contents
 
Sec. 1620.4  ``Closely related'' and ``directly essential'' activities.

    An employee is engaged in the production of goods for interstate or 
foreign commerce within the meaning of the FLSA even if the employees's 
work is not an actual and direct part of such production, so long as the 
employee is engaged in a process or occupation which is ``closely 
related'' and ``directly essential'' to it. This is true whether the 
employee is employed by the producer of the goods or by someone else who 
provides goods or services to the producer. Typical of employees covered 
under these principles are computer operators, bookkeepers, 
stenographers, clerks, accountants, and auditors and other office and 
whitecollar workers, and employees doing payroll, timekeeping, and time 
study work for the producer of goods; employees in the personnel, labor 
relations, employee benefits, safety and health, advertising, promotion, 
and public relations activities of the producing enterprise; work 
instructors for the producers; employees maintaining, servicing, 
repairing or improving the buildings, machinery, equipment, vehicles or 
other facilities used in the production of goods for commerce, and such 
custodial and productive employees as watchmen, guards, firemen, 
patrolmen, caretakers, stockroom workers and warehousemen; and 
transportation workers bringing supplies, materials, or equipment to the 
producer's premises, removing waste materials therefrom, or transporting 
materials or other goods, or performing such other transportation 
activities, as the needs of production may require. These examples are 
illustrative, rather than exhaustive, of the employees who are ``engaged 
in the production of goods for commerce'' by reason of performing 
activities closely related and directly essential to such production.