The Wage and Hour Division of the Department of Labor (DOL) issued two opinion letters clarifying the application of the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) to employees who commute from home to work during a portion of their workday. The DOL's Employee Benefits Security Administration (EBSA) issued a proposed rule allowing digital delivery by employer group health plans of required disclosures, which are currently mailed. The House Committee on Education and the Workforce passed a bill that would bar the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) from issuing workplace heat standards.

DOL Issues Two Wage and Hour Opinion Letters – The Department of Labor (DOL) issued two opinion letters focusing on how the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) applies to commuter travel of employees who work from home during a portion of their workday. Wage and Hour Administrator Andrew Rogers stated, "By elucidating how the FLSA applies to various commuting situations, the division is enabling organizations to successfully implement compliant practices that support operational and employee needs, while ensuring that workers are properly compensated for all hours worked."

Opinion Letter 2026-09 concerns whether time spent during the workday commuting between the home and work office of an employee would constitute hours worked for which the employer needs to compensate the employee under the FLSA. The DOL concluded that mid-day travel would "qualify as normal or ordinary commuter travel, which is not hours worked under the FLSA," and an employer would not need to count the travel time as work.

Due to continuous workday principles, an employer with a large workforce of non-exempt employees does not allow them to work in more than one location in a single workday. The employer cited the FLSA regulation 29 C.F.R. 785.38 providing that travel between work sites during the day must be counted as hours worked. According to the DOL, the continuous workday doctrine is based on the presumption that time spent by an employee during the workday primarily benefits the employer for which the employee should be compensated while time outside the workday mostly benefits the employee and therefore the employee is not entitled to compensation. DOL believed that "ordinary home-to-work travel that occurs during the workday constitutes a third category of time during the workday, in addition to bona fide meal breaks and off-duty time, that is not considered 'hours worked' under the FLSA." Where travel between home and work would not be considered ordinary, such as where "the travel and the timing thereof are both dictated by the employer and impose such significant constraints on the employee's time," the DOL found that the travel would mostly benefit the employer, not the employee, and that the employee would be owed compensation.

Opinion Letter 2026-10 raised the issue as to whether time spent by an employee receiving pages, calling clients and other workers to schedule appointments, and driving from home to the first client would be considered worktime. The DOL concluded that compensation is not owed for time spent receiving pages since it is incidental to use of a vehicle provided by the employer for commuting, but time spent calling clients to schedule appointments and scheduling other employees is compensable since "it is integral and indispensable to your principal work activities of installing and servicing equipment at client sites."

This opinion letter request was filed by a field service engineer who installed and serviced MRI systems. The employee did not have an office but worked at the locations of clients with the work hours starting at 8:00 AM and lasting until 5:00 PM. Between 7:00 AM and 8:00 AM the employer sent between 3 to 5 service requests and the employee would call the clients to set up appointments with each call lasting between 5–10 minutes. The employee may also need to schedule coworkers to assist with the service requests.

The Employee Commuting Flexibility Act, which Congress passed in 1996 and amended the Portal-to-Portal Act provides that the use of an employer-provided vehicle for travel before, during, or after the workday and activities related to the use of the vehicle for commuting are not considered principal activities for which the employee needs to be compensated. Receiving pages with work assignments, according to DOL would not be compensable since it prevents an employee from having to report to a central work location to receive assignments, "which would frustrate the convenience of a program allowing employees who work at multiple job sites per day to drive an employer-provided vehicle directly to and from home." The DOL found that time spent calling clients to schedule appointments and contacting coworkers would be compensable hours worked, since they are "a necessary step to performing the services requested by them."

DOL Proposes Rule to Modernize Group Health Plan Disclosures – The Employee Benefits Security Administration (EBSA) of the Department of Labor (DOL) issued a proposed rule designed to make communication of required disclosures by group health plans faster, more efficient, and cheaper. For the 2.8 million group health plans covered by the Employee Retirement Income Security Act (ERISA), the proposed rule would establish a safe harbor allowing required documents to be delivered digitally. According to EBSA, group health plans currently print and mail up to 11 billion sheets of paper annually and this proposal could save group health plans $3.9 billion over ten years. Acting Secretary of Labor Keith Sonderling stated, this proposal is a "commonsense change that delivers real savings and better service for workers across the country." Comments on the proposed rule are due by September 21.

House Committee Passes Bill Barring Heat Standards – The House Committee on Education and the Workforce passed the Heat Workforce Standards Act (H.R. 6213) that was introduced by Representative Mark Messmer (R-IN). The bill would prohibit the Secretary of Labor from finalizing, implementing, or enforcing the proposed "Heat Injury and Illness Prevention in Outdoor and Indoor Work Settings" that was issued during the Biden Administration from taking effect. The bill also would also bar any substantially similar standard from taking effect. Representative Messmer stated that "the rule would have forced nearly every American business and institution to follow rigid, one-size-fits-all, federal workplace standards based on predetermined temperature thresholds, regardless of industry, climate, or existing safety protocols." Committee Democrats criticized the bill noting that, "As extreme heat becomes more frequent and dangerous, the bill would deny workers basic protections such as access to water, rest breaks, training, and emergency response plans." The bill will be considered next by the full House of Representatives.

Neil Reichenberg is the former executive director of the International Public Management Association for Human Resources. He is an attorney, a frequent writer and speaker on public policy and human resource issues, and an adjunct faculty member at George Mason University. For questions or additional information, contact Reichenberg at [email protected].