Catherine Meek Quoted in the Boston Globe

In the September 17 Job Dock column of the Boston Globe, Catherine Meek responds to a reader’s question about whether the time she spends changing into her street clothes before going home can be considered “on the clock.”

The columnist says that employers must compensate their employees for time spent changing clothes and that an employee's compensable hours are defined by the Fair Labor Standards Act and the Portal-to-Portal Act. Employers need not pay employees for any time spent engaging in activities that are ``preliminary or postliminary" to the employee's principal activities, like driving to work or walking from the employer's time clock to the location of the employee's principal activity. The Supreme Court has defined the term "principal activity" to include "all activities which are an integral and indispensable part of the principal activities." That means if a preliminary activity, such as changing clothes, is an integral and indispensable part of your principal work duties, your employer must pay you.

Catherine Meek, an associate in the Boston office of legal firm Seyfarth Shaw, says, "Employees who require specialized protective gear to perform their principal work activities must be paid for time spent 'donning and doffing' that gear, unless the time spent is de minimis [insignificant]." "Generally, the courts have limited the definition of `specialized protective gear' to those employees who require 'unique' protective gear such as chemical factory workers who must change clothes and shower because of their extensive exposure to caustic and toxic chemicals, and meat cutters who must use knives and wear special gloves, armguards and chain-link metal aprons."

However, if your job merely requires "ordinary" clothes-changing or the donning of simple items such as safety glasses or a hard hat, donning and doffing occur on your own time.