Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/13pdf/12-417_9okb.pdf
Page Number: 8.0

Cite as:  571 U. S. ____ (2014) 

5 

Opinion of the Court 

commencement and completion on the same workday of an 
employee’s principal activity or activities . . . [,] whether or 
not  the  employee  engages  in  work  throughout  all  of  that 
period.”  12  Fed.  Reg.  7658  (1947);  29  CFR  §790.6(b)
(2013).  Of  particular  importance  to  this  case,  a  Labor 
interpretive  bulletin  also  specified  that 
Department 
whereas  “changing  clothes”  and  “washing  up  or  shower-
ing”  “would  be  considered  ‘preliminary’  or  ‘postliminary’ 
activities”  when  “performed  outside  the  workday  and  . . . 
under the conditions normally present,” those same activi-
ties “may in certain situations be so directly related to the 
specific  work  the  employee  is  employed  to  perform  that 
[they]  would  be  regarded  as  an  integral  part  of  the  em-
ployee’s ‘principal activity.’ ”  12 Fed. Reg. 7659, and n. 49; 
29 CFR §790.7, and n. 49.

In  1949,  Congress  amended  the  Fair  Labor  Standards
Act  to  address  the  conduct  discussed  in  that  interpretive
bulletin—changing  clothes  and  washing—by  adding  the 
provision presently at issue: 

“Hours  Worked.—In  determining  for  the  purposes  of 
[the  minimum-wage  and  maximum-hours  sections]  of 
this  title  the  hours  for  which  an  employee  is  em-
ployed,  there  shall  be  excluded  any  time  spent  in 
changing  clothes  or  washing  at  the  beginning  or  end 
of  each  workday  which  was  excluded  from  measured 
working time during the week involved by the express 
terms  of  or  by  custom  or  practice  under  a  bona  fide 
collective-bargaining agreement applicable to the par-
ticular employee.”  63 Stat. 911, 29 U. S. C. §203(o). 

Simply  put,  the  statute  provides  that  the  compensability 
of  time  spent  changing  clothes  or  washing  is  a  subject 
appropriately committed to collective bargaining. 

In  Steiner  v.  Mitchell,  350  U. S.  247  (1956),  the  Court 
echoed  the  Labor  Department’s  1947  regulations  by  hold-
ing  that  “changing  clothes  and  showering”  can,  under