My question is a bit complicated well at least to me.

I do both international and domestic travel a ton for business and am an hourly (nonexempt employee.) My employer is out of California but I live in Colorado and travel exclusively from Colorado.

The problem I am having and I am not certain if they are in the right or not is, they are not using travel time or training time in the computation of overtime.

Example I just flew to an oversees site and had 12 hours of travel both ways. I worked 60 hours that week. Instead of getting 44 hours of overtime and 40 hours of regular time I received 64 hours regular time and 20 hours overtime. The 24 hours of travel were listed specifically under travel on my pay stub.

The same works in the computation of training hours that I am required to attend. Again for an example if I go to training for 2, 8-hour classes and then work an additional 40 hours I receive 56 hours of regular pay.

Does this make any sense to anyone and if not what labor regulation might I be able to reference in this matter? If so what labor regulation allows them to do this?

I was of the assumption that work was considered suffrage for the company and that was to be computed into the hours worked for overtime.

According to federal FLSA guidelines, travel time for nonexempt employees is considered work time and therefore, must be considered for purposes of overtime computations.
http://www.dol.gov/dol/allcfr/ESA/Title_29/Part_785/29CFR785.39.htm

Training time is also work time under certain conditions.
http://www.dol.gov/dol/allcfr/ESA/Title_29/Part_785/29CFR785.27.htm

I really appreciate your information. If what I have read in other posts you have been in HR for a long time.

What I do not understand and hopefully your experience will help me decipher a couple of things in the the links you sent me.

It talks about travelling by plane does not count for overtime. If I am reading this correctly it still counts if traveling during regular working hours.

Assuming that the employer is not willing to change the policy what recourse would an employee have?

No matter how you travel, if the travel occurs during working hours, then it is work time, even if those hours are on a weekend, for example, as long as the hours themselves coincide with your regular working hours.

You may have misunderstood, I'm not sure. To clarify, travel as a passenger on a train, boat, plane, etc. is not working hours unless it coincides with the working hours as described above. If you were driving from, say 5 p.m. to 9 p.m., then those WOULD be work hours.

If the employer is not complying the the law (this is federal law to which all states must adhere), and they refuse to do so, you can file a claim with your state Dept. of Labor for unpaid wages/overtime.

Just for curiosity's sake, what do you do as a nonexempt employee that requires so much travel? It is pretty uncommon for companies to send nonexempt employees overseas.

I am in field service in the Semiconductor business. I travel about 80 percent of my life.

Sorry I did not answer you last question sooner actually I have been out of town and my laptop went south :( .

I do appreciate you taking the time to answer this. I have asked my manager a couple of times and whenever this question comes up it is simply ignored.

Perhaps I will have to be a bit more forceful. Thanks again for all your help.

Travelmachine

If you're being ignored by your employer, you may have to file a claim for unpaid overtime with the state (to start) or federal Dept. of Labor. Try Human Resources first though. Good luck.