I am being required by my employer to travel for free for up to 45 minutes at the start and the end of each day to different job sites.

Background: I am a non-exempt field service employee with a home office, and I work at many different facilities each day not necessarily in the same town where I repair electronic equipment. Some sites are far enough away to require overnight stays. Normal work hours are 8-5 m-f with a 1 hr unscheduled lunch. The company requires that we be ready to go each day at 7:15

Questions: The way I interpret this is if I have to drive to my first location I should do so for free, but if the call center calls me and dispatches me then I am doing work. Is this correct? Also if I am required to do administrative work before 8 or after 5 I feel as though I should be compensated for this along with working through lunch. Is this also correct? Lastly if I am required to travel on a weekend, should I get paid for this?

Thanks in advance,
Shonzo

You have a number of somewhat unrelated questions.
- Non-Exempt employees get paid based on actual hours worked. There is no "weekend" rule and no "administrative" rule and no "at home vs. at work" rule. Whatever is true during the week is equally true during the weekend. Whatever is true when you are doing non-administrative work is equally true when you are doing administrative work. Whatever is true when you are working at the customer's site is equally true when you are working at home. These points you raise do not actually exist in law.
- The "you do not get paid to commute" rule is the federal Portal-to-Portal Act. Under this law, commuting time is not normally considered to be hours worked. There are a few exceptions, but legally this exceptions are considered to be few and far between. Nothing you have said so far strikes me as an obvious exception. The related rules are in the 29 CFR 785.33-785.41 range. I am going to suggest that you read all of the regulations in that range and see if there is an exception that you can hard support. Hint: The employer can read the exact same rules, and if it does not look to the employer, or DOL, that you are right, then your argument probably will not have legs.
http://www.dol.gov/dol/allcfr/ESA/Title_29/Chapter_V.htm
- NM is not my state, and I have no idea what state specific rules on this subject (if any) NM has. My answer is federal rules only.

Thanks so much for the quick reply. To go further, I would like to point out that I have no problem with commuting for free. The only place where I take issue is when I have to do other tasks such as speek with customers in the form of technical support (we bill for this) and do administrative work such as reading and responding to company email, training etc. during this "commuting" time. Are we entitled to compensation for this?

The short answer is that Non-Exempt employees are paid based on hours worked, all hours worked. Everything you have said sounds like "hours worked". Now, is there some possibility of a weird exception running around out that, sure, anything is possible. Could your employer for example structure the sort of things you are talking about at a different rate of pay, say minimum wage? Maybe, although nothing you have said indicates that this has occured.

I am however skeptical that you are reading your email or training at exactly the same time that you are driving a car, if that is what you meant by the do administrative work such as reading and responding to company email, training etc. during this "commuting" time. If you are talking about taking public transportation, then I personnally would be very skeptical that during a one-and-half-hour commute (for example) that you actually got that much work done.

There is a strong legal presumption that commutes are unpaid that would have to be overcome.

:) Thank you so much for responding DAW.

To clarify, I am not reading email while driving instead, I am sitting in my home office reading email but the company is treating this time as though it is commuting time.
Example 1: 7:15 am I turn on the computer, read and respond to company email. 8:00 drive to first location to perform work.

Example 2: 7:15am drive to customer location to perform normal duties 8:00 start duties.

In example 1 I feel I am entitled to pay starting at 7:15 because I am engaged in work related activities. In example 2 I feel I am entitled to pay starting at 8:00 for the same reason. However, the company view is slightly different.

The employer is wrong. Commuting time is not normal work time, but work time (including time working at home) is normally work time.