California’s “reporting time pay” law sometimes directs employers to pay workers above the actual hours worked on short days. Personnel managers of course must know the circumstances that trigger this obligation and see to any resulting extra compensation.

Many of this state’s workplace compensation rules are found in the 18 “wage orders” of the Industrial Welfare Commission. There is an overall wage order on minimum wage. Each of the other 17 covers a particular industry or type of worker. Wage Order 1 applies to the manufacturing industry. Wage Order 4 applies to “professional, technical, mechanical and similar occupations.” The list goes on.

Wage Order 4, Section 5 (with comparable sections in the other 17 industry/occupation wage orders) addresses “reporting time pay.” It provides that when an employee is required to and does report to work, but works less than half of that employee’s normal day’s work or scheduled time, the employer must pay him/her for half of the usual or scheduled day’s hours, with a minimum of two hours and maximum of four. Emphasis supplied.

Two California appeals court decisions illustrate situations when and how the reporting time pay rule will apply.

In Aleman v. Airtouch Cellular (2012) 209 California Appellate Reporter 4^th series (Cal.App.4^th) 556, the Court of Appeal found the employer was not obligated to provide additional reporting time pay on a day when the worker attended (and was paid for) his actual one-hour participation in a scheduled 90-minute “store meeting” on a weekend. Although that one hour was less than the employee’s normal shifts, the 90 minutes was scheduled time and the worker received pay for the actual 60 minutes (more than half of 90), thus no extra pay.

In Price v. Starbucks (2011) 192 Cal.App.4^th 1136, a store manager called in an employee “to have a talk” outside of any scheduled shift. The manager fired that worker in a 45-second conversation, providing two checks, the first for all wages earned on that employee’s previous shift days, the second for two hours of reporting time pay on the day he was terminated.

The Court of Appeal found that Mr. Price was entitled to reporting time pay for that last day but that Starbucks had complied with the law by paying the two hours. This was because the worker’s appearance in that instance was not for any usual or otherwise scheduled working shift but for a meeting to last an “unspecified number of hours.” The Court observed: “If an employee is not scheduled to work or does not expect to work his usual shift, but must report to work for a meeting, the employee falls into the regulatory category of those employees called to work on their day off for a scheduled meeting. Price was entitled to the [two hour] minimum payment, which is what he received.”

A manager’s take-aways from this should include: a) avoid scheduling employees unless you know you will need their services at least half of the time scheduled; b) if on a particular day an employee is no longer needed and leaves before half of the scheduled hours are completed, the company must still pay half of those scheduled hours; c) for on-premises meetings with employees outside of normal shifts, specify the scheduled time and duration of the meeting and pay at least half of that time if the meeting happens to break up (or an employee leaves) before the halfway point; d) as in the Starbucks’ decision above, a minimum two hours reporting time pay will be due for “day off” meetings of an indeterminate duration that end up lasting less than two hours.

For assistance in implementing these rules, please contact Tim Bowles, Cindy Bamforth or Helena Kobrin.

Helena Kobrin
May 9, 2017