[Claim for Overtime Compensation]

A branch chief of the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) requested a decision as to whether six FAA air traffic control specialists might legally be paid overtime compensation for preshift briefing duty. FAA contended that time spent on lunch breaks should have been used to offset the compensable preshift work and that, although the employees were on call while at lunch in a facility away from the work site, they were never actually recalled to their post of duty during this time. The employees asserted that they did not routinely have a lunch break because of staffing shortages during the day and the midnight shifts. The claims had been validated by the Office of Personnel Management (OPM), but FAA forwarded its request for a decision with its rebuttal of the OPM compliance orders. GAO accepted the OPM findings of fact and held that, since the employees worked a preshift briefing and did not have bona fide meal periods which would allow an offset, the employees were entitled to overtime compensation under current labor law for hours worked in excess of 40 a week when they were engaged in preshift briefings. GAO noted that these claims were partially barred by the 6-year statutory limitation on the filing of a claim from the time it first accrued. Accordingly, payments may be made to the above claimants for the portions of their claims not so barred.