Fair Labor Standards Act—Pre-Shift Wait Time.

Fair Labor Standards Act—Pre-Shift Wait Time. Bridges v. Empire Scaffold, L.L.C., 875 F.3d 222 (5th Cir. 2017). The Portal-to-Portal Act provides rules for determining whether time engaged in certain workrelated activity counts for purposes of minimum wage and overtime compensation under the FLSA. Among other things, the Act provides that time engaged in activities incidental to work but occurring before an employee’s principal work activity are not compensable for FLSA purposes. 29 U.S.C. § 254(a). In this case, the employer required employees to ride an employer-controlled bus to a work site and then sign in. Then the employees waited at that site until a horn sounded, beginning the shift. The Fifth Circuit held that this pre-shift wait time was not compensable. The wait time was not integral and indispensable to the work the employees were hired to perform.