[Entitlement to Overtime Compensation for Preshift and Postshift Duties]

A decision was requested as to whether 81 police officers of the Library of Congress are entitled to overtime compensation for preshift and postshift duties. The Library stated that the officers have been regularly afforded duty-free lunch breaks to offset allegedly compensable periods of preshift and postshift work. The claimants alleged that they are required to report at least 15 minutes before their scheduled shifts to perform preliminary activities and stay approximately the same amount of time after their shifts to reverse the routine. The Library's report regarding these required duties and the time required to perform them conflicts with the employees' statements. However, the Library does not contest the officers' assertion that they perform 30 minutes of compensable preshift and postshift work per day. A union agreement between the Library and the officers states that the officers will have a lunch break of 30 minutes during which the employee is officially on duty and subject to call. The Library stated that the officers are relieved from their posts during lunch breaks and, although officially on duty and subject to call, these interruptions are so infrequent as to be nonexistent. Therefore, the Library contended that these periods may be offset against compensable preshift and postshift work. However, the officers stated that they have been required to perform substantial duty during lunch breaks and submitted sworn statements to that effect. They further stated that Library regulations do not permit lunch breaks to be offset against compensable preshift and postshift work. GAO has held that the mere fact that an employee is on call will not defeat a setoff for lunch breaks, unless the employee demonstrates that his break time was substantially reduced by responding to calls. GAO found that the officers failed to demonstrate that they have been restricted to the extent that they lacked duty-free meal breaks. Under the circumstances, GAO had no basis to question the Library's determination that the lunch breaks were substantially duty-free. Accordingly, GAO held that the lunch breaks could be offset against periods of compensable preshift and postshift work.