First Roberts Court Decision Affirms ‘Continuous Workday’ Rule Under FLSA, But Rejects Employee Claim For Waiting Time Pay

In the first decision issued by the Roberts Court, the Supreme Court ruled yesterday in IBP, Inc. v. Alvarez that if time spent donning and doffing protective gear is a compensable activity under the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA), then so too is the time spent by employees walking between the locker room where the donning and doffing takes place and the stations where the employees perform their principal activities.

The genesis of the IBP decision is in the Portal-to-Portal Act of 1947, passed as an amendment to the FLSA. The Portal-to-Portal Act excepted from FLSA coverage walking to and from the place of the employee’s “principal activity or activities” and work which is “preliminary or postliminary” to such principal activities. Later, however, in Steiner v. Mitchell, the Supreme Court interpreted “principal activity or activities” to embrace all job duties which are “an integral and indispensable part of the principal activities.”