"Workers clocking in must juggle the need to quickly start taking customer calls with spending time loading multiple programs to address those calls. Complicating the question of when compensable time starts, a federal judge in Ohio last week issued what he described as one of the first opinions to wrestle with how fielding calls from home changes things. Judge Douglas R. Cole found workers punch in when they start using that first workplace app, not when they press the power button."
"Figuring out when employers must pay workers for pre- or post-shift tasks is an "old problem," and there's no reason working from home rather than from an employer's premises should change things, said University of Oregon employment law professor Elizabeth Tippett. There's no "one-size-fits-all approach" to resolving those questions, and it's "entirely logical and practical" to say at-home work matters, said Epstein Becker & Green PC's Jeff Ruzal, who defends employers in wage suits."
An Ohio federal judge ruled that remote call-center employees begin compensable work time when they start using the first workplace application rather than when they power on devices. The dispute arose after Recker Consulting employees alleged unpaid time booting computers and loading call-handling programs before shifts. The ruling applies the integral-and-indispensable analysis to remote pre-shift tasks and signals employers will cite the decision when arguing certain pre- or post-shift tasks are noncompensable. Employment law experts disagree on whether telework changes the analysis. The decision may influence other courts and affect thousands of remote customer-service workers and employer policies.
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