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On Your Own Time

Lauren R. Taylor

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Different rules apply to certain law enforcement officers and other, smaller, groups. Senior Executive Service members are not eligible for comp time or overtime pay.
Feds are ticked off about not getting comp time for traveling off the clock.

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et's get right to the bottom line: If you're reading this, you probably can't get any compensation-time or money-for personal time spent on government travel.

That's because the 1938 Fair Labor Standards Act, which governs overtime pay and comp time and requires overtime pay for work in excess of eight hours in a day or 40 hours in a week, doesn't apply to most managers, professionals and executives. If that law doesn't cover you, you're left with Title 5 of the U.S. Code, which says only a tiny number of obscure situations qualify a worker for comp time or overtime pay-none of them likely to help when you travel on personal time.

Ticked Off

Uncompensated time on travel irks and inconveniences many federal travelers. One Defense civilian says he is frustrated at frequently being required to leave home on a Sunday morning, making it impossible for him to attend church, and return home the following Saturday. The employee says his supervisor's response is, "If you don't like it here, find another job." In the coming months the Defense traveler will be on the road for three weeks at a time for three months in a row.

"It is unfair to ask us who travel for work to give up our personal lives to accommodate the organization," says the worker, who asked not to be identified. "If we were adequately compensated for this time, I am sure we would not be on the road as much." He estimates that last year he donated 286 hours of personal time to business travel.

A civilian agency worker says he returned from travel at about 10 o'clock one night; the following day he reported for work about an hour late. "My supervisor asked me to fill out a leave slip for one hour. I asked, 'What about the time that I spent last night driving home?'" the worker says, adding that the supervisor said, in essence, "tough luck."

A federal attorney recently spent more than 25 hours of uncompensated time traveling across the country to attend a meeting. "This is totally outrageous and unfair and a very good incentive for me to leave public service and go back to the private sector," she says. "All it does is make me feel unappreciated and unworthy."

Time-Tested Rules

After Sept. 11, the amount of personal time lost to travel has increased. Travelers must get to the airport earlier, and, especially in the Washington area, many flights that used to be direct now require connections, making for more time in transit.

But not everyone's out of luck, because some offices are flexible. Some supervisors allow workers to go home early to prepare for a trip, or, more commonly, come in late after returning. A Defense manager says: "My employees know that they can take whatever unofficial comp time they deem reasonable for personal business during business hours. I've been blessed with honest employees, so there has never been an issue."

One traveler reports, "I am comfortable asking my boss for time after a trip, and I get it. I am also a supervisor and extend the same to those who work for me." Those who follow such "unofficial" practices point out that it is never a one-for-one exchange: Usually travelers take off an hour or two-or maybe a morning-after spending much longer on the road.

The law specifies that whenever possible, travel should be scheduled during an employee's regular workweek. And in many federal offices, people try to start meetings on Monday afternoon and ending them Friday morning.

Federal workers covered by unions often negotiate contracts that attempt to protect them from too much travel off the clock. One such contract says, "The agency agrees it will schedule travel during normal duty hours to the maximum extent practicable. When the employee is required to travel outside duty hours in order to accomplish the mission of the agency, the employee has the right to request from management the reasons for such determination." Another says, "Management will consider employees' personal needs with respect to scheduling travel, and management will not ordinarily require travel on the weekends for activities over which the department has no control."

Off The Clock

Some federal workers consider weekend and evening demands part of the job. A Veterans Affairs Department employee says that in her office, "it's an atmosphere of team playing, and you do whatever it takes to get the job done."

Paul Anderson, an Energy Department travel manager, says he would know if staffers had a problem with the law, because he hears all the travel-related gripes. But in his office, the "ethic is that travel time, especially after hours, is uncompensated."

Despite some employees' illusions, they wouldn't necessarily be better off in the private sector. Only 22 percent of the organizations who responded to a 2001 survey by the Society for Human Resource Management reported that they give comp time for business travel on personal time.

For travelers who aren't happy with the lack of comp time, relief may be in the works. The Office of Personnel Management is reviewing and researching the entire compensation system, and included in that effort is the possibility of asking Congress for a change in the laws governing overtime. This is a long-term project, so don't hold your breath-or count your hours.

OVERTIME TANGLE

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he Office of Personnel Management administers and enforces the laws on pay and overtime for federal employees. But don't ask that agency to explain the laws on travel time-its publications on the subject are inscrutable. So, until the plain language mandate makes its way to OPM, here are the basics of the laws.

If you are covered by the Fair Labor Standards Act, and you work more than eight hours in a day or 40 hours in a week, including travel, in most situations you would be eligible for overtime pay.

If your job is executive, managerial or professional, the FLSA most likely doesn't cover you. In that case, your work hours are governed by Title 5 of the U.S. Code. That law says that if you are traveling outside the regularly scheduled workweek, and the time is "ordered or approved," you can get compensatory time or overtime pay if one of the following conditions applies:

  • You are working while driving (as in a job that requires driving a truck).
  • The work is "arduous and unusual."
  • The scheduling of the work is not in the government's control.

The final condition is the one that trips most people up: They reason, for example, that if a private sector group hosts a meet ing, training or conference that government employees attend, it's not in the government's control. But a strict interpretation is often applied to that condition: In that example, it is in the government's control when the employee arrives at the event. A situation that qualifies as being out of the government's control would be one in which the employee is subpoenaed for a job-related court appearance.

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