The essence of the claim against CLS is that it fails to pay for all of an employee's work time.  By failing to track the hours of work, CLS systematically underpays locator employees.  Because the hours worked by locators typically exceed 40 hours per week, the unpaid wages should be paid for at the overtime rate of time and a half the employee's hourly rate of pay.

Work Time

All time spent by an employee performing activities which are job-related is potentially "work time." This includes the employee's regular "on the clock" work time, plus "off the clock" time spent performing job-related activities (which benefit the employer). If an employer knows the employee is doing work (or could have found out by looking), and lets the employee do it, the employer will be responsible for paying for the work time.

In the lawsuit filed by current and former CLS utility locators, they claim they were not paid for all of their hours of work because substantial amounts of work was performed at home and while traveling that was not tracked by CLS.  The Plaintiffs claim that they were not paid for the following categories of work:

  1. Time spent on computers at the beginning of the day downloading, routing, and sorting job assignments.  This includes time spent logging onto the system using a computer or time spent sorting and routing job assignments received by fax machine;

  2. Time spent traveling to the first site of the day where locating duties are performed when employees performed work duties (routing, sorting, calling contractors, etc.) before driving to the first job site or during the drive to the first job site;

  3. Time spent traveling after completing the day's locating duties when additional work (routing, sorting, reporting work, calling contractors, etc.) was performed during the trip or after arriving home. 

  4. Time spent working at the end of the day reporting the work done during the day whether that reporting work was done via CLS computers or via fax machine.  This includes any pre-routing done for the next day's work.

With only a few exceptions, all time an employee is required to be at the premises of the employer is work time. All regular shift time is work time. This includes most "breaks" (if there are breaks), and "nonproductive" time (for example, time spent by a call center employee waiting for the phone to ring). In addition, all time spent by an employee performing work-related activities that the employer permits is work time, whether on premises or not and whether "required" or not. Work done "at home" or at a place other than the normal work site is work, and the time must be counted. "Voluntary" work is work, and the time must be counted. "Unauthorized" or "unapproved" work is work and must be counted.  In order to be considered work, the employer must or should have known it is being done and permits the employee to do it.  The employer is charged with controlling the work of its employees. If an employer does not wish an employee to perform work, it must not permit the employee to do so if it does not wish to pay for that work. An employer may not accept the benefit(s) of work performed by its nonexempt employees without counting the time in computing the employee's pay.

The Plaintiffs assert that CLS knew or required its locators to work at home before and after their regular work days.  Because CLS knew about the work or required it, the time spent performing duties that benefit CLS is work time and should be paid.

Hours where an employee is not working do not count as work time, even if the employee is paid for them. For example, leave time (paid time off such as vacation, holiday, and sick time) and meal time are not considered as work time. In addition to leave time and meal periods, other potential "time not worked" may include some travel time and sleep time.