Definitions relevant to pay during travel or training include the following:
- Travel time — time spent by an employee moving from one location to another during which no productive work is performed and excluding the normal mealtime if it occurs during the period of travel.
- Local commuting area — the suburban area immediately surrounding the employee’s official duty station and within a radius of 50 miles.
Commuting time before or after the regular workday between an employee’s home and official duty station or any other location within the local commuting area is a normal incident of employment and is not compensable. It is not compensable regardless of whether the employee works at the same location all day or commutes home after the workday from a location different from the one where the workday started.
Commuting time to and from work is not compensable when an employee is called back to work after the completion of the regular workday. However, such commuting time is compensable if the employee is called back to work at a location other than his or her regular work site.
When an employee is employed to work on a permanent basis at more than one location in the same service day, the time spent commuting between the locations is not compensable travel time, provided there is a break in duty status between the work performed in the different locations. A break in duty status occurs when an employee is completely relieved from duty for a period of at least 1 hour that may be used for the employee’s own purposes. This 1–hour or greater period must be in addition to the actual time spent in travel and the normal meal period, if the normal meal period occurs during the time interval between the work at the different locations. (See 438.132 for travel time between job locations when there is no break in duty status.)
The determination of whether travel time is compensable or not depends upon (a) the kind of travel involved, (b) when the travel takes place, and (c) the eligibility of the employee (see Exhibit 438.13). The three situations that may involve compensable travel time are described below.
The following applies to travel from job site to job site:
- Rule. Time spent at any time during a service day by an eligible employee in travel from one job site to another without a break in duty status within a local commuting area is compensable. (See 438.123, which makes the travel time noncompensable as commuting time when there is a break in duty status between the work performed in different locations.)
- Eligibility. This type of travel time is compensable for all employees during their established hours of service on a scheduled workday. At all other times, this type of travel time is compensable only for FLSA–nonexempt employees who are entitled to receive overtime pay.
Exhibit 438.13
Eligibility for Travel Time Compensation
The following applies to 1–day assignments outside the local commuting area:
- Rule. Except as stated in the next sentence, time spent at any time during a single service day by an eligible employee who is traveling on Postal Service business to one or more locations outside of the local commuting area and back to the home community is compensable. Time spent commuting in either direction between home and an airport, bus terminal, or railroad station within the local commuting area, if it occurs outside of established hours of service on a scheduled workday, and the usual mealtime, must be deducted from compensable travel time.
- Eligibility. This type of travel time is compensable for all employees during their established hours of service on a scheduled workday. At all other times, this type of travel time is compensable only for bargaining unit and nonexempt nonbargaining unit employees.
The following applies to travel away from home overnight:
- Rule. Travel time spent by an eligible employee traveling on Postal Service business to and from a postal facility or other work or training site which is outside the local commuting area and at which the employee remains overnight is compensable if it coincides with the normal workhours for a bargaining unit employee’s regular bid job, regardless of his or her schedule while away from the home installation, or for a nonbargaining employee’s schedule in effect while traveling, whether on a scheduled or a nonscheduled day, subject to 438.141 and 438.142. For instance, an eligible employee with normal workhours of 7:00 p.m. to 3:30 a.m. Saturday through Wednesday is scheduled for training at another location from 8:00 a.m. to 4:30 p.m., Monday through Friday. If the employee travels from 6:00 p.m. to 8:00 p.m. on any day of the week, 1.0 travel hour is compensable. If the same employee travels from 5:00 p.m. to 7:00 p.m. on any day of the week, no travel hour is compensable. Compensable travel time includes the time spent in going to and from an airport, bus terminal, or railroad station.
- Eligibility. This type of travel time is compensable for all employees on their scheduled workdays. On nonscheduled days, this type of travel time is compensable only for nonexempt employees.
- Intermediate Travel Home. Employees who are on an extended assignment away from home may be given the opportunity during the assignment to return home for personal convenience. Although the cost of the round trip is a reimbursable travel expense, the travel time involved is not compensable when it falls outside of the scheduled service week given to the employee during the temporary assignment.
- Scheduling of Travel. Travel away from home overnight is to be scheduled by management on a reasonable basis without a purpose either to avoid compensation for the travel time or to make the travel time compensable.
If an eligible employee who is traveling under the provisions of 438.132, 438.133, or 438.134 is offered public transportation but uses a personally owned conveyance for personal convenience, only the lesser of the time spent actually driving or those creditable hours that would have been spent in travel by public transportation are compensated.
All time spent actually driving an automobile while traveling away from home overnight because no public transportation is available is compensable travel time for an eligible employee whether the time occurs within or outside of the employee’s established hours of service.
Any time spent by an eligible employee in actual work that is required or suffered or permitted to be performed while traveling is compensable.
Provisions concerning compensation are as follows:
- Compensable travel time is counted as worktime for pay purposes and is included in hours worked in excess of 8 hours in a day, 40 hours in a week, or on a nonscheduled day for a full-time employee, for the determination of overtime for eligible employees (see 433 and 434.1).
- Out–of–schedule premium, nonbargaining rescheduling premium, and guaranteed time are not payable to employees while traveling away from home overnight.
- Night differential is paid to eligible employees during those hours of compensable travel between 6:00 p.m. and 6:00 a.m. on either a scheduled or nonscheduled day.
- Sunday premium is paid to eligible employees for paid travel time during a scheduled tour that includes any part of a Sunday.
The rules stated in 438.1, Pay During Travel, do not affect the entitlement of employees to other types of reimbursement under applicable regulations, such as reimbursement of certain travel expenses and per diem.
Title 29, Code of Federal Regulations (CFR), provides as follows:
- 29 CFR 785.27 states:
“Attendance at lectures, meetings, training programs and similar activities need not be counted as working time if the following four criteria are met:
- Attendance is outside of the employee’s regular working hours;
- Attendance is in fact voluntary;
- The course, lecture, or meeting is not directly related to the employee’s job; and
- The employee does not perform any productive work during such attendance.”
If any one of the four criteria is not met, the time must be counted as working time. (See exception in 438.21c).
Note: If the postal training imparts knowledge and skills uniquely beneficial to the Postal Service, it is to be considered as time worked whether the training is directly related to the employee’s job or not.
- 29 CFR 785.28 states:
“Attendance is not voluntary…in fact if the employee is given to understand or led to believe that his or her present working conditions or the continuance of her or his employment would be adversely affected by nonattendance.”
- 29 CFR 785.30 states:
“Of course, if employees on their own initiative attend an independent school, college or independent trade school after hours, the time is not hours worked for their employers even if the courses are related to their jobs.”
The determination of whether time spent in training is compensable depends upon (a) when the training takes place; (b) the category of training, subject to applicable limitations on paid training hours (see 711 and 712); and (c) the eligibility of the employee.
All employees are eligible for compensation for any training time which occurs during their established hours of service on a scheduled workday. For purposes of the preceding sentence, any leave time is not considered established hours of service on a scheduled workday. However, when a senior qualified employee, pursuant to a voluntary bid, engages in scheme study, training, testing, and qualifying, that employee may elect to use annual leave for such purpose, and for directly related travel that would be compensable under 438.132, provided that that employee has a sufficient annual leave balance. The study, training, testing, and qualifying time must be recorded on PS Form 2432, Individual Training Progress Report. Where the senior bidder passes the appropriate examination and accepts the position, the annual leave (including compensable travel) will be converted to hours worked, the employee’s annual leave balance will be recredited a like number of hours, and FLSA premium pay may be due for any hours worked over 40 in any such workweek.
Nonexempt employees are eligible for compensation for job training time suffered or permitted outside their established hours of service on a scheduled workday, as well as any time suffered or permitted on a nonscheduled workday. (See 711 for categories of training.)
No employees are eligible for compensation for any type of self–developmental training occurring outside their established hours of service on a scheduled workday.
Provisions concerning compensation for special training time are as follows:
- Management agreement to fund wholly or partially the tuition and related costs of a course or courses given by an accredited educational institution when such agreement is made at the request of an employee does not cause the training to become job training so as to make the training time compensable.
- Attendance at training courses sponsored by the various management associations or labor unions is not compensable.
Provisions for scheduling compensable training time are as follows:
- Compensable training time is counted as work time for pay purposes, including the determination of overtime for eligible employees. It is included in hours worked in excess of 8 hours in a day or 40 hours in a week and those hours worked by any nonexempt employee on a nonscheduled day.
- Management may change either a nonexempt or an exempt employee’s regularly scheduled working hours to coincide with the scheduled hours of training. In such cases, out–of–schedule premium (see 434.6), or the nonbargaining rescheduling premium (see 434.7), is not authorized.
- Employees who are eligible for night differential and who participate in compensable training are paid the applicable night differential they would have earned during their regularly scheduled workhours had they not been temporarily rescheduled by management to attend such training. Night differential and/or Sunday premiums are paid to all eligible employees whose training hours include night and/or Sunday hours.
