consultant travel time exempt employee Virginia

[bpwald]

I'm in a consulting firm that requires us to record 40 hours a week. They advise us not to count travel time (including time in automobiles, planes, trains) between our office and customer locations in the 40 hours we are responsible for recording. If a contract mandates that you travel to a client location, is it legal for the firm to expect you to spend the time traveling as if it didn't exist (or was personal preference?)

[Pattymd]

This is not an issue addressed by wage and hour law. I did this type of work for 5 years. "Recording" 40 hours is not the same as "billing" 40 hours. Having said that, though, I spent many Sunday afternoons and Thursday/Friday nights traveling. That was just the job.

[DAW]

If you are a correctly classified Exempt Salaried employee, then you never have any legal expectation of being paid overtime. There is no specific law prohibiting night travel. In most states for most employees, it is even legal to required them to work 24/7. This is impossible of course, but not illegal on it's face. There is no legal requirement on employers that the time accounting for Exempt Salaried employees be maintained although there is no law that says that employers cannot choose to do so. And labor law does not address hours collected for billing purposes.