Overtime Claim for Travel

A chief steward of the Federal Employees Metal Trades Council requested a GAO decision as to whether employees who are nonexempt under the Fair Labor Standards Act are entitled to overtime compensation for travel where they are returning from temporary duty at an overseas location. While assigned to temporary duty in Scotland, three pipefitters were assigned work on Friday and returned home on Saturday. They were paid for 8 hours of overtime while in travel status on Saturday, although their return travel involved 12 hours of travel time. The agency subsequently collected back the overtime payments from the employees on the basis that overtime could not be paid for this travel. The union argued that, although work in a foreign area is exempt from coverage by the Fair Labor Standards Act, the three employees in this case performed hours of work within their administrative workweek in an area covered by the Act. The agency argued that these three employees did not perform work in the United States within their regularly scheduled administrative workweek and, therefore, the travel time was not compensable under the Act. GAO concluded that the time spent in traveling did not need to be limited to the employee's regularly scheduled administrative workweek in order to be compensable under the Act. The foreign exemption to the Act would not be applicable due to the performance of compensable work (travel) during the workweek. The employees were entitled to overtime compensation under the Act for the hours of travel on Saturday that corresponded to their normal working hours.