Sleep time may be properly excluded from compensable hours worked for an employee on duty for 24 hours or more if (1) adequate sleeping facilities are furnished by the employer, (2) the employee’s time spent sleeping is usually uninterrupted, and (3) there is an expressed or implied agreement to exclude sleep time.
Whether an employer has provided “adequate sleeping facilities” to a domestic service employee depends on the facts and circumstances of a particular living arrangement. In general, an employer must ensure that the employee has access to basic sleeping amenities; reasonable standards of comfort; and basic bathroom and kitchen facilities. The sleeping area and other facilities can be shared or private.
An employee can “usually get an uninterrupted night’s sleep” if an employer’s interruptions that prevent him/her from getting five consecutive uninterrupted hours of sleep occur less than half the time. However, interruptions to an employee’s five consecutive hours of sleep that occur during half or more than half of an employee’s shift are too frequent to meet this requirement.
An “expressed or implied agreement” regarding the exclusion of sleep time means either a written or verbal agreement that an employee will not be paid for sleep time or an agreement to exclude sleep time that is implied by the employer and employee’s conduct. If an employee objects to the exclusion of sleep time from her hours worked, no such agreement exists and all hours spent on duty, including time spent sleeping, must counted as work time.
October 2018
Tags: Sleep time Requirements
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