Key Terms

A. The Portal-to-Portal Act (1947) provides that employers are not required to pay for the time employees spend on
activities occurring before or after they perform the principal activities for which they are employed. For example,
compensable working time generally does not include time spent:
• Traveling to or from work.
• Engaged in incidental activities before or after work.
B. 29 U.S.C. § 207(a)(1)
(a) EMPLOYEES ENGAGED IN INTERSTATE COMMERCE; ADDITIONAL APPLICABILITY TO EMPLOYEES
PURSUANT TO SUBSEQUENT AMENDATORY PROVISIONS

1. Except as otherwise provided in this section, no employer shall employ any of his employees who in any
workweek is engaged in commerce or in the production of goods for commerce, or is employed in an enterprise
engaged in commerce or in the production of goods for commerce, for a workweek longer than forty hours
unless such employee receives compensation for his employment in excess of the hours above specified at a rate
not less than one and one-half times the regular rate at which he is employed.
C. FLSA
The Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) establishes minimum wage, overtime pay, recordkeeping, and child labor
standards affecting full-time and part-time workers in the private sector and in Federal, State, and local
governments.
D. A class action, class suit, or representative action is a type of lawsuit where one of the parties is a group of
people who are represented collectively by a member of that group.
E. Sandifer v. U.S. Steel Corp. (2014)
Workers at the United Steel Corporation brought a class action suit against the company arguing that the Fair Labor
Standards Act required the company to compensate them for time spent changing into and out of work clothes and the
transit time from the locker room to their work stations. The Act states that an employer does not need to compensate
employees for time spent "changing clothes." United States Steel Corporation moved for summary judgment. The
district court granted the motion as it relates to compensation for changing clothes but not in relation to compensation
for transit time.
The company appealed, and the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit held that Act did not require the
company to compensate the employees for either the time spent changing or the time spent in transit between the
locker room and the work stations.
F. Steiner v. Mitchell (1956)
Workers in a plant manufacturing wet storage battery, in which extensive use is made of dangerously caustic and toxic
materials, are compelled by vital considerations of health and hygiene and by other considerations to change clothes
before and after work and to shower after work in facilities which state law requires their employer to provide. Held:
Changing clothes and showering are parts of their "principal," rather than their "preliminary" or "postliminary,"
activities, within the meaning of 4 (a) (2) of the Portal-to-Portal Act, and the time spent in these activities must be
counted in measuring the work-time for which compensation is required by the Fair Labor Standards Act. Pp. 248-256.

G. Mitchell v. King Packing Co., 350 U.S. 260 (1956)

Knifemen employed in butchering and trimming meat in respondent's meatpacking plant spend time each workday in
sharpening the knives which they use in their work. Such knife sharpening is necessary for the proper performance of
the work, and respondent requires it to be done outside the scheduled eight-hour shift of these employees, and provides
a room and equipment for its accomplishment.
Held: this activity is a "principal," rather than a "preliminary" or "postliminary," activity, within the meaning of §
4(a)(2) of the Portal-to-Portal Act