Bridging the Gap: Overtime Gap Time under the Fair Labor Standards Act

Imagine a hardworking employee, Ernst. Ernst is hired to complete low skill, hard labor at a slaughterhouse for twelve dollars per hour. He speaks little English, is not well known to his employer, and is far from indispensable. Each day, Ernst arrives thirty minutes before his assigned shift to set up his work station, works through lunch, and, because the slaughterhouse expects him to complete significant post-shift duties, leaves work thirty minutes after clocking out. The slaughterhouse automatically deducts a full lunch hour from Ernst’s recorded hours every day without regard to whether he ate lunch. Because Ernst receives no compensation for the time he spends working through lunch, nor for his pre-shift and post-shift work, the slaughterhouse fails to compensate Ernst for ten work hours per week.1 Thus, though Ernst typically works a fortyfive hour week, he only receives compensation for thirty-five hours. How can Ernst redress this mistake? As a practical matter, he cannot sue his employer in contract, because he cannot afford to anger his employer and risk his livelihood. The United States Department of Labor exists to protect employees from such exploitation, and ordinarily might independently step in to investigate without requiring Ernst to initiate legal action.