Definitions

Work

"Work" includes any labor benefitting an employer. It includes work at home, "off the clock" work, preparatory work to your shift, clean-up time after your shift. It includes time spent on break, when the breaks are 20 minutes or less. Time spent working at home (for example, answering emails or doing other work for your job) is work time, if the employer knew or should have known that you worked at home.

Work does not generally include: lunch time of 1/2 hour or more, when you are free to leave the work site and your time is your own to do what you please. On call time, or time carrying a beeper is not generally considered work time, if you are otherwise free to do whatever you wish with the time. Generally the courts have held that such on-call time is not work time even when there are geographical or sobriety restrictions on an employee during the on-call period. However, time spent actually talking on the phone to answer calls or beepers is work time.