Or. Admin. R. 839-020-0045

Current through Register Vol. 63, No. 4, April 1, 2024

Section 839-020-0045 - Travel Time

(1) Home to work in an ordinary situation: An employee who travels from home before the employee's regular workday and returns home at the end of the workday is engaged in ordinary home to work travel which is a normal incident of employment, whether the employee works at a fixed location or at different job sites. Normal travel from home to work is not work time.

(2) Home to work in an emergency situation: If an employee has left the employer's premises or job site after completing the day's work and is subsequently called out to travel a substantial distance to perform an emergency job, any time spent in excess of time spent in normal home-to-work travel will be considered working time. Call-backs which require only normal home-to-work travel to the employer's place of business or job site will not be considered working time. For purposes of this section, "substantial distance" means a distance beyond a 30-mile radius of the employer's place of business.

(3) Travel that is all in a day's work: Time spent by an employee in travel as part of the employee's principal activity must be counted as hours worked. Where an employee is required to report at a meeting place to receive instructions or to perform other work there or to pick up and carry tools, the travel from the designated place to the work place is part of the day's work and must be counted as hours worked regardless of any contract, custom or practice:

(a) Example: A construction worker who travels from job site to job site during the work day must be compensated for time spent in traveling;

(b) Example: If an employee who normally finishes work on the employer's premises at 5 p.m. is sent to another job at a different site, finishes that job at 8 p.m. and is then required to return to the employer's premises arriving at 9 p.m., the employee will be compensated for all time up to 9 p.m. However, if the employee goes home instead of returning to the employer's premises, the travel time after 8 p.m. is considered normal work to home travel and is not compensable.

(4) Home to work on special one-day assignment to another city: An employee who regularly works at a fixed official work station, if given an assignment to work in another city outside of a 30 mile radius of the official work station where normally employed, and not required to stay over night, must be paid travel time pursuant to section (3) of this rule. This time is considered an integral part of a principal activity.

(5) Travel away from the home community: Travel that keeps an employee away from home overnight is travel away from home. Travel away from home is work time when it cuts across the employee's workday. The employee is substituting travel for other duties. The time is not only hours worked on regular working days during normal working hours but also during the corresponding hours on non-working days. Time that is spent in travel away from home outside of regular work hours as a passenger on an airplane, train, boat, bus, or automobile is not considered work time.

(6) When a private automobile is used in travel away from the home community: If an employee is offered public transportation but requests permission to drive the employee's own car instead, the employer may count as hours worked either the time spent driving the car or the time the employee would have had to count as hours worked during working hours if the employee had used the public conveyance.

(7) Work performed while traveling includes any work which an employee is required to perform while traveling and must be counted as hours worked. An employee who drives a truck, bus, automobile, boat or airplane, or an employee who is required to ride therein as an assistant or helper, is working while riding, except during bona fide meal periods or when the employee is permitted to sleep in adequate facilities furnished by the employer.

Or. Admin. R. 839-020-0045

BL 1-1990, f. 2-27-90, cert. ef. 2-28-90; BLI 1-2002, f. & cert. ef. 1-9-02

Stat. Auth.: ORS 653

Stats. Implemented: ORS 653.010 -- ORS 653.261