Source: https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/321/590/
Timestamp: 2019-04-18 14:28:55+00:00

Document:
1. The Fair Labor Standards Act is remedial and humanitarian in nature, and must not be interpreted or applied in a narrow, grudging manner. P. 321 U. S. 597.
2. Sections 7(a), 3(g) and 3(j) of the Fair Labor Standards Act are necessarily indicative of a Congressional intention to guarantee either regular or overtime compensation for all actual work or employment. P. 321 U. S. 597.
3. In the absence of a contrary legislative expression, it must be assumed that Congress, in the Fair Labor Standards Act, was referring to work or employment as those words are commonly used -- as meaning physical or mental exertion (whether burdensome or not) controlled or required by the employer and pursued necessarily and primarily for the benefit of the employer and his business. P. 321 U. S. 598.
both courts below, to constitute work. Such underground travel time is includible in the workweek within the meaning of the Fair Labor Standards Act, and must be compensated accordingly. P. 321 U. S. 598.
5. Although such underground travel of the iron ore miners is in a strict sense nonproductive, they are nevertheless engaged during such travel time in a "process or occupation necessary to . . . production," within the meaning of § 3(j) of the Act. P. 321 U. S. 599.
6. The facts relating to underground travel by miners in iron ore mines in this case leave no doubt as to its character as work within the meaning of the Fair Labor Standards Act, and the requirement of the Act that it be compensated accordingly cannot be rendered inapplicable by any contrary custom or contract. P. 321 U. S. 602.
Certiorari, 320 U.S. 731, to review a judgment which modified and affirmed a judgment, 40 F.Supp. 4, in actions for declaratory judgments construing the Fair Labor Standards Act.
iron ore mines within the meaning of the Fair Labor Standards Act, 52 Stat. 1060, 29 U.S.C. § 201, et seq. This question, which is one of first impression, arises out of conflicting claims based upon the actual activities pursued and upon prior custom and contract in the iron ore mines. Such an issue can be resolved only by discarding formalities and adopting a realistic attitude, recognizing that we are dealing with human beings and with a statute that is intended to secure to them the fruits of their toil and exertion.
conceded that, if underground travel constitutes employment, the miners worked more than the statutory maximum workweek, and are entitled to be paid one and one-half times the regular rate for the excess hours. But, if the travel time is excluded from the workweek, thus limiting it to the time spent at the working face, no overtime payments are due.
many miners stop at a tool box or tool house on the surface to pick up other small supplies and tools necessary for their work. These activities consume but a few minutes.
The miners thereupon are required to report at the loading platform at the mine portal and await their turn to ride down the inclined shafts of the mines. Originally the miners could reach the working faces entirely by foot, but, as the shafts increased in length, petitioners provided transportation down the main shafts. The miners accordingly ride part of the way to the working faces in ore skips [Footnote 9] or regular man trips, [Footnote 10] which operate on narrow gauge tracks by means of cables or hoisting ropes. The operation of the skips and man trips is under the strict control and supervision of the petitioners at all times, and they refuse to permit the miners to walk, rather than ride. Regular schedules are fixed; loading and unloading are supervised; the speed of the trips is regulated, and the conduct of the miners during the rides is prescribed.
above the top of the skips. But, since the skips usually clear the low mine ceilings by only a few inches, the miners are compelled to bend over. They thus ride in a close "spoon-fashion," with bodies contorted and heads drawn below the level of the skip top. Broken ribs, injured arms and legs, and bloody heads often result; even fatalities are not unknown.
The length of the rides in the dark, moist, malodorous shafts varies in the different mines from 3,000 feet to 12,000 feet. The miners then climb out of the skips and man trips at the underground man-loading platforms or "hoodlums," and continue their journeys on foot for distances up to two miles. These subterranean walks are filled with discomforts and hidden perils. The surroundings are dark and dank. The air is increasingly warm and humid, the ventilation poor. Odors of human sewage, resulting from a complete absence of sanitary facilities, permeate the atmosphere. Rotting mine timbers add to the befouling of the air. Many of the passages are level, but others take the form of tunnels and steep grades. Water, muck, and stray pieces of ore often make the footing uncertain. Low ceilings must be ducked, and moving ore skips must be avoided. Overhead, a maze of water and air pipelines, telephone wires, and exposed high voltage electric cables and wires present ever-dangerous obstacles, especially to those transporting tools. At all times, the miners are subject to the hazards of falling rocks.
Moreover, most of the working equipment, except drills and heavy supplies, is kept near the "hoodlums." This equipment is carried each day by foot by the crews through these perilous paths from the "hoodlums" to the working faces. Included are such items as fifty-pound sacks of dynamite, dynamite caps, fuses, gallon cans of oil, and servicemen's supplies. Actual drilling and loading of the ore begin on arrival at the working faces, interrupted only by a thirty minute lunch period spent at or near the faces.
The service and maintenance men, of course, work wherever they are needed.
At the end of the day's duties at the working faces, the miners lay down their drills, pick up their other equipment, and retrace their steps back to the "hoodlums." They wait there until an ore skip or man trip is available to transport them back to the portal. After arriving on the surface, they return their small tools and lamps, pick up their brass checks at the tally house, and proceed to bathe and change their clothes at the bath house. Finally, they leave petitioners' property and return to their homes.
In determining whether this underground travel constitutes compensable work or employment within the meaning of the Fair Labor Standards Act, we are not guided by any precise statutory definition of work or employment. Section 7(a) merely provides that no one who is engaged in commerce or in the production of goods for commerce shall be employed for a workweek longer than the prescribed hours unless compensation is paid for the excess hours at a rate not less than one and one-half times the regular rate. Section 3(g) defines the word "employ" to include "to suffer or permit to work," while Section 3(j) states that "production" includes "any process or occupation necessary to . . . production."
But these provisions, like the other portions of the Fair Labor Standards Act, are remedial and humanitarian in purpose. We are not here dealing with mere chattels or articles of trade, but with the rights of those who toil, of those who sacrifice a full measure of their freedom and talents to the use and profit of others. Those are the rights that Congress has specially legislated to protect. Such a statute must not be interpreted or applied in a narrow, grudging manner. Accordingly, we view Sections 7(a), 3(g), and 3(j) of the Act as necessarily indicative of a Congressional intention to guarantee either regular or overtime compensation for all actual work or employment.
Viewing the facts of this case, as found by both courts below in the light of the foregoing considerations, we are unwilling to conclude that the underground travel in petitioners' iron ore mines cannot be construed as work or employment within the meaning of the Act. The exacting and dangerous conditions in the mine shafts stand as mute, unanswerable proof that the journey from and to the portal involves continuous physical and mental exertion, as well as hazards to life and limb. And this compulsory travel occurs entirely on petitioners' property, and is at all times under their strict control and supervision.
Such travel, furthermore, is not primarily undertaken for the convenience of the miners, and bears no relation whatever to their needs or to the distance between their homes and the mines. [Footnote 12] Rather, the travel time is spent for the benefit of petitioners and their iron ore mining operations. The extraction of ore from these mines, by its very nature, necessitates dangerous travel in petitioners' underground shafts in order to reach the working faces, where production actually occurs. Such hazardous travel is thus essential to petitioners' production. It matters not that such travel is, in a strict sense, a nonproductive benefit. Nothing in the statute or in reason demands that every moment of an employee's time devoted to the service of his employer shall be directly productive. Section 3(j) of the Act expressly provides that it is sufficient if an employee is engaged in a process or occupation necessary to production. Hence, employees engaged in such necessary, but not directly productive activities as watching and guarding a building, [Footnote 13] waiting for work, [Footnote 14] and standing by on call [Footnote 15] have been held to be engaged in work necessary to production and entitled to the benefits of the Act. Iron ore miners traveling underground are no less engaged in a "process or occupation" necessary to actual production. They do more than "stand and wait," Missouri, K. & T. R. Co. v. United States, 231 U. S. 112, 231 U. S. 119. Cf. Bountiful Brick Co. v. Giles, 276 U. S. 154, 276 U. S. 158. Theirs is a fossorial activity bearing all the indicia of hard labor.
"The workday in underground metal mining starts when the miner reports for duty as required at or near the collar [portal] of the mine, and ends when he reaches the collar at the end of the shift."
for computing working time in the iron ore industry." They further claim that, since the Fair Labor Standards Act contains no specific provision regarding underground travel in mines, Congress must be presumed to have intended to perpetuate existing customs or to leave the matter to be worked out through the process of collective bargaining.
The short answer is that the District Court was unable to find from the evidence that any such "immemorial" custom or collective bargaining agreements existed. That court, in making its findings, properly directed its attention solely to the evidence concerning petitioners' iron ore mines and disregarded the customs and contracts in the coal mining industry. There was ample evidence that, prior to the crucial date of the enactment of the statute, the provisions in petitioners' contracts with their employees relating to a forty-hour workweek "at the usual working place" bore no relation to the amount of time actually worked or the compensation received. Instead, working time and payment appear to have been related to the amount of iron ore mined each day. Hence, such contract provisions defining the workweek are of little if any value in determining the workweek and compensation under a statute which requires that they be directly related to the actual work performed.
to secure at least partial compensation for their travel time and their dissatisfaction with existing arrangements, moreover, negative the conclusion that there was any real custom as to the workweek and compensation therefor. A valid custom cannot be based on so turbulent and discordant a history; it requires something more than unilateral and arbitrary imposition of working conditions. [Footnote 17] We thus cannot say that the District Court's findings as to custom and contract are so clearly erroneous as to compel us to disregard them.
rights. Cf. Overnight Motor Transportation Co. v. Missel, 316 U. S. 572; Holden v. Hardy, 169 U. S. 366. See also Louisville & Nashville R. Co. v. Mottley, 219 U. S. 467; J. I. Case Co. v. Labor Board, 321 U. S. 332; Order of Railroad Telegraphers v. Railway Express Agency, Inc., 321 U. S. 342.
This does not foreclose, of course, reasonable provisions of contract or custom governing the computation of work hours where precisely accurate computation is difficult or impossible. Nor are we concerned here with the effect that custom and contract may have in borderline cases where the other facts give rise to serious doubts as to whether certain activity or nonactivity constitutes work or employment. It is sufficient in this case that the facts relating to underground travel in iron ore mines leave no uncertainty as to its character as work. The Act thus requires that appropriate compensation be paid for such work. Any other conclusion would deprive the iron ore miners of the just remuneration guaranteed them by the Act for contributing their time, liberty, and strength primarily for the benefit of others.
These actions were instituted under the Federal Declaratory Judgments Act, 48 Stat. 955, § 274d, 28 U.S.C. § 400. They were consolidated for trial purposes, and the District Court entered a single judgment.
The "working face" is the place in the mine where the miners actually drill and load ore. The "face to face" basis of compensation, advocated by petitioners, includes only the time spent at the working face. The "portal to portal" basis, proposed by respondents, includes time spent in traveling between the portal or entrance to the mine and the working face and back again, as well as the time spent at the working face.
No review has been sought of the exclusion from the workweek of the activities at the surface. We therefore do not discuss that issue in this case. Alexander v. Cosden Pipe Line Co., 290 U. S. 484, 290 U. S. 487, and cases cited.
The Tennessee Coal, Iron & Railroad Company has eight mines; Sloss-Sheffield Steel & Iron Company two mines, and Republic Steel Corporation two mines.
As the District Court pointed out, the conditions set forth by the record are not intended to be used to censure petitioners' manner of maintenance of their mines, "for these conditions may well be normal conditions in iron ore mines, and practically inevitable." Moreover, the record indicates that the Spaulding mine of the Republic Company has been operated only intermittently and experimentally during the last 20 years, and many of the conditions in the other mines are not present. The ore is close to the surface, and miners can walk all the way to the working faces.
"Whenever a man comes to the mine late, dragging along, and encourages others to be late, he is setting a bad example. I want this understood thoroughly -- men must be on time; we don't care whether they work here or not, but if they want to work here, they will have to be on time, or else they will be disciplined, even to discharge."
The use of the bath house, or change house, is optional. Some miners change their clothes at home, and make no use of the bath houses furnished by petitioners.
An ore skip is an ordinary four-wheeled ore box car made of steel. It is normally used for transporting ore, and its floor is often covered with muck from such haulings. When men are riding in the car, it is known as a "man skip trip." It is used for such purposes in the mines of the Tennessee Company and the Republic Company.
A regular man trip is a specially constructed series of cars. Each car is about eight feet long, and resembles a stairway. Five men sit on either side of the car facing outwards, back to back with five men on the other side. The man trip used in the Sloss Company mines consists of six such cars.
"1. To exert oneself physically or mentally for a purpose, esp., in common speech, to exert oneself thus in doing something undertaken chiefly for gain, for improvement in one's material, intellectual, or physical condition, or under compulsion of any kind, as distinguished from something undertaken primarily for pleasure, sport, or immediate gratification, or as merely incidental to other activities (as a disagreeable walk involved in going to see a friend, or the packing of a trunk for a pleasure trip). . . ."
"2. To make use of the services of; to give employment to; to entrust with some duty or behest."
Cf. Dollar v. Caddo River Lumber Co., 43 F.Supp. 822; Sirmon v. Cron & Gracey Drilling Corp., 44 F.Supp. 29; Bulot v. Freeport Sulphur Co., 45 F.Supp. 380; Walling v. Peavy-Wilson Lumber Co., 49 F.Supp. 846.
Walton v. Southern Package Corp., 320 U. S. 540; Kirschbaum Co. v. Walling, 316 U. S. 517.
Fleming v. North Georgia Mfg. Co., 33 F.Supp. 1005; Travis v. Ray, 41 F.Supp. 6.
Walling v. Allied Messenger Service, Inc., 47 F.Supp. 773.
Arizona and Utah statutes specifically include all the travel time within the eight-hour limitation. Ariz.Code Ann. (1939), vol. 4, § 56-115; Utah Code Ann. (1943), § 49-3-2. The Supreme Court of Montana has construed Mont.Const. art. 18, § 4, and Mont.Rev.Code (1935), § 3071, which provide for eight hours of work per day in underground mines, to include all travel time, Butte Miners' Union No. 1 v. Anaconda Copper Mining Co., 112 Mont. 418, 118 P.2d 148. Nevada Comp.Laws (1929), § 10237, provides that the limitation shall apply to travel one way. But Wyoming Rev.Stat. (1931), § 63-107, specifically excludes underground travel from the limitation; a like result has been reached by interpretation of California Stats.1909, ch. 181, p. 279, in Matter of Application of Martin, 157 Cal. 59, 106 P. 238. Alabama and Tennessee fix no limitation on hours, while maximum hour statutes of other metal mining states are inconclusive insofar as the inclusion of travel time is concerned. See also § 5(2) of the English Metalliferous Mines Regulation Act (1872), 35 & 36 Vict., c. 77, which provides that "The period of each employment shall be deemed to begin at the time of leaving the surface, and to end at the time of returning to the surface."
"it must have been peaceable, and acquiesced in; not subject to contention and dispute. For, as customs owe their original to common consent, their being immemorially disputed, either at law or otherwise, is a proof that such consent was wanting."
1 Commentaries 77. See also Pollock, First Book of Jurisprudence, 283 (6th ed.).
meaning at the time of the enactment of the Fair Labor Standards Act as to be deemed incorporated by reference. As a result, "workweek" in this statute, as applied to workers in this industry and on this record, has no technical meaning -- that is, a meaning so well known to those in this particular industry as to be applied by courts in enforcing the Statute when invoked by men in the industry. For purposes of this case, in any event, when Congress used the word "workweek," it used it colloquially -- the term carries merely the meaning of common understanding.
An administrative agency for preliminary adjudication of issues arising under the Wages and Hours Law, like that established by the National Labor Relations Act, was not provided by Congress. And so the application of this colloquial concept "workweek" to the multifarious situations in American industry was left by Congress for ascertainment by judicial proceedings. These facts are to be found either by a jury or, as in this case, by a judge sitting without a jury. And so, here, it was the judge's duty to determine what time and energy on the part of the employees involved in this suit constituted a "workweek" of these employees of the petitioners. After a trial which lasted for about three weeks, during which testimony covering 2,643 pages was heard and voluminous exhibits were introduced, the District Court made its findings of fact. A judgment for the employees based on these findings was affirmed by the Circuit Court of Appeals, 40 F.Supp. 4; 135 F.2d 320.
We have, then, a judgment of two courts based on findings with ample evidence to warrant such findings. Affirmance by this Court is therefore demanded.
answer. When Congress, in the Fair Labor Standards Act, referred to "a work week longer than forty hours," it considered, I assume, that what was a work week in fact should be a work week in law. Therefore, the determination of any particular case does not govern any other, for each establishment and industry stands on its own conditions.
A seasoned and wise rule of this Court makes concurrent findings of two courts below final here in the absence of very exceptional showing of error. Goodyear Tire & Rubber Co., Inc. v. Ray-O-Vac Co., 321 U. S. 275; District of Columbia v. Pace, 320 U. S. 698; Baker v. Schofield, 243 U. S. 114, 243 U. S. 118; Williams Manufacturing Co. v. United Shoe Machinery Corp., 316 U. S. 364, 316 U. S. 367.
"They are performed on the premises of the employer, in the furtherance of the employer's business, with no benefits to the employee (except to aid him in the performance of work for the employer), under conditions created and controlled by the employer, and they involve responsibility to the employer and physical exertion, even though not burdensome, on the part of the employee. No characteristic of work is lacking."
These were found to be the facts by the two courts below and, whatever we might decide if we were a trial court hearing the evidence in the first instance, we cannot with our limited review hold them wrong on this record.
The question for decision in this case should be approached not on the basis of any broad humanitarian prepossessions we may all entertain, not with a desire to construe legislation so as to accomplish what we deem worthy objects, but in the traditional and, if we are to have a government of laws, the essential attitude of ascertaining what Congress has enacted, rather than what we wish it had enacted.
What did Congress mean when it said, in Sec. 7(a) of the Fair Labor Standards Act, that "No employer shall . . . employ any of his employees . . . for a workweek longer than forty hours . . . unless such employee receives compensation" for overtime at a specified rate? No other issue is presented.
hours, and overtime for extra work, in any week shows that what Congress meant by work was what I have above described -- the actual service rendered to the employer for which he pays wages in conformity to custom or agreement.
It is common knowledge that what constitutes work for which payment is to be made varies with customs and practices in different industries or businesses. Where the employee is required to report at his employer's place of business and go thence to the place where his employer's activities are pursued, it has been the custom in some cases to pay for the time spent in going from the employer's place of business to the place of work. In many industries, some or all of the employees are required to report and to remain at a given place awaiting a call for emergency or other casual service, and, according to understanding, they are paid for the hours during which they wait as well as those in which they actually put forth physical or mental effort. There can be little doubt that Congress expected the provisions of the Act to be fitted into the prevailing practices and understandings as to what constituted work in various industries.
answer is plain, then, I submit that existing workweek must control in the administration of the statute unless and until employer and employees, by consensual arrangement, alter the current practice.
Conditions of labor in iron mines and in coal mines are similar. In both, as the workings become deeper, the men have farther to go to reach the places at which they labor. The time thus consumed by individual workmen varies in the same mine, and in different mines. The conditions in the channels of approach to the places of work are somewhat better in iron mines than in coal mines. The custom in coal mines is therefore persuasive, since some of the petitioners maintain coal and iron mines in close proximity, and since the practice in the two has been the same for many years.
In the public arbitration proceedings at Birmingham, Alabama, in 1903, the testimony showed that a miner's day was reckoned "from the time [he] gets to the face of the coal until he leaves the face of the coal," and that the eight-hour day was so measured. That arbitration resulted in a wage agreement on the "face to face" basis -- that is, on a wage fixed according to the time the miners worked at the face of the coal.
"An eight-hour day means eight hours work at the usual working places of all classes of employees. This shall be exclusive of the time required in reaching such working places in the morning and departing from the same at night. "
In 1920, the report and award of the Bituminous Coal Commission, which was made the basis of agreement between operators and union miners, employed the language just quoted.
"Seven hours of labor shall constitute a day's work, and this means seven hours' work at the usual working places for all classes of labor, exclusive of the lunch period, whether they be paid on the day or tonnage or other piece work basis."
"Eight hours of labor shall constitute a day's work. The eight-hour day means eight hours' work in the mines at the usual working places for all classes of labor, exclusive of the lunch period."
Prior to 1938, the petitioner Tennessee Coal, Iron & Railroad Company paid its miners either on a piece work basis or upon a shift basis, as did the petitioners Sloss-Sheffield, and Republic Steel. But the common understanding of men and management was that, at first, ten hours, and, later, eight hours constituted a working day. This is shown by the proofs, and there is no evidence to the contrary.
On numerous occasions, the men working in these mines claimed, through their unions, that they ought to be paid for travel time consumed in the mines in going to or from the face where they worked. Their demands for pay for travel time are eloquent proof that they understood the basis on which their pay was reckoned, and that it did not include travel time as working time. No agreement to pay for travel time was made, and no practice to pay for it was adopted.
"Section 4 -- Hours of Work. Eight (8) hours shall constitute a day's work and forty (40) hours shall constitute a week's work. Time and one-half shall be paid for all overtime in excess of eight (8) hours in any one day or for all overtime in excess of forty (40) hours in any one week."
"The eight (8) hour day means eight hours of work in or about the mines at the usual working places for all classes of labor, exclusive of the lunch period, whether they be paid by the day or be paid on the tonnage basis."
The circumstances are not materially different with respect to Sloss-Sheffield. That company has bargained with a union representing its miners since 1934. Several times the union made a demand for payment of travel time, but this was not granted. A formal agreement containing the same definitions of workweek, and hours of work, as in the case of Tennessee, was executed in 1939 and renewed in 1940. The company continued to pay on the face to face basis until 1941.
work on the face to face plan of payment. In 1935, the union proposed that the employees should enter on their own time and come out on company time, but, in negotiations, the matter was dropped. In 1936, the union wrote the company respecting an agreement and, in its proposal, said: "The eight-hour day means eight hours in or about the mines at the usual working places for all classes of work." In 1939, the union proposed an agreement containing a like provision. In that year, the union preferred charges before the National Labor Relations Board, but these did not involve the face to face basis of wage computation. The complaint was settled by stipulation. The company continued to pay for a day's work on the face to face basis until May 1, 1941.
The Fair Labor Standards Act became effective October 24, 1938. At that time, coal and iron miners were being paid on the basis of their time spent at their working places in the mine. The miners fully understood this basis.
"This method of measuring the working time at the place of work has been the standard provision in the basic wage agreements for almost fifty years, and is the result of collective bargaining in its complete sense."
provision to be made for transportation of the men over long distances to their working places."
"would create so much confusion in the bituminous industry as to result in complete chaos, and would probably result in a complete stoppage of work at practically all of the coal mines in the United States."
On the footing, of that letter, the Administrator issued a release stating that the face to face basis in the bituminous industry would not be unreasonable.
On March 23, 1941, the Administrator announced a modified portal to portal wage hour opinion in which he defined the work day in underground metal mining as starting when the miner reports at the collar of the mine, ends when he returns to the collar, and includes the time spent on the surface in obtaining and returning lamps, carbide, and tools and in checking in and out. Realizing that this was a complete change of opinion, the Administrator announced that he would not seek to compel payment of restitution from mine owners operating on a face to face basis, but that he could not interfere with the right of employees or their representatives to sue for past overtime and penalties under § 16(b) of the Act. Thereupon, the unions representing miners demanded payment of overtime for all travel time since the effective date of the Act, and invoked the penalties specified therein.
In order to avoid possible penalties, the petitioners complied with the Administrator's ruling and brought the present suit for a declaratory judgment to the effect that working time of underground employees comprised the hours of work in the usual working places in the mine, and did not include the time consumed in travel thereto and therefrom.
of the adoption of, the Fair Labor Standards Act. This was given by miners, foremen, and employers, and represented not any single locality, but the industry over the country. In fact, some of the testimony consisted of depositions taken by the respondents, but offered by the petitioners. It was all to the effect that the working time of iron miners had always been calculated and paid for according to the time worked in the mine at the place assigned for the work, and that travel time had never been included in the time for which payment was made.
"This compensation has never been based upon any precise number of hours spent daily at the face of the seam or at any specified place or station in the mines."
The finding would seem difficult to explain in view of the history heretofore outlined. The explanation is found in the fact that, although the men were paid for an eight hour day of work at the face, if blasts were about to be set off at the close of the day, the men were sent away from the face some time before the blasting but were, nevertheless, paid as if they had remained at the face for the full eight hours. But this can be no reason for disregarding the practices and agreements of the parties.
understood that no wages were paid for time spent in travel in the mines.
Finding 13 is to the effect that the unions which made agreements with various petitioners had never been certified by the National Labor Relations Board as appropriate units for collective bargaining. The bearing of this finding is difficult to understand in view of the fact that the employers dealt with the unions representing their men, and two operated under formal collective bargaining agreements with nationally affiliated unions.
Findings 15 to 27, inclusive, describe the conditions under which the men arrive at the mine, check in, obtain their tools, and walk, or are carried, to their work underground, and how they return. They recite that the men have to obey company regulations while they are on the company property and in going to and returning from work. Many of these regulations are for the men's safety. These findings also show that, after arriving on company property, the men receive certain directions with respect to the work they are to do. The obvious bearing of these findings is that the court thought travel ought to be considered work within the intendment of the Act, whatever the custom, practice, or agreement of the parties. It would be no less a judicial fiat, though somewhat more extreme, to hold that, as the men's living quarters are uncomfortable and unhealthy, and they must live in the neighborhood of the mines, the time spent in their homes must be paid for as work.
The two concluding findings are of facts which add nothing. They are to the effect that, if all the travel time is counted in the workweek, the men have worked more than forty hours per week, and the petitioners have not paid them for more than forty hours.
it to find that there was a custom to pay for such time, which the District Court failed to do, for the obvious reason that there was no evidence of such custom.
As I have already pointed out, the Fair Labor Standards Act was not intended by Congress to turn into work that which was not work, or not so understood to be at the time of its passage. It was not intended to permit courts to designate as work some activity of an employee, which neither employer nor employee had ever regarded as work, merely because the court thought that such activity imposed such hardship on him or involved conditions so deleterious to his health or welfare that he ought to be compensated for them.
"conform with the basic legal requirements of the industry and the maximum hours of work time provisions be amended to establish 'portal to portal' for starting and quitting time for all underground workers."
"The Mine Workers desire to take advantage of the law which, under the Alabama decision, grants them the right to be paid for the time they are in the mines."
as it must be, as a declaration of law by a court as to what is a work week under the Act, and not a finding of fact based on the custom of the industry and the agreement of the parties. In August, class actions were filed by the United Mine Workers in various district courts to obtain overtime compensation for portal to portal pay.
One further fact should be noted. The District Court found that not only the travel time from and to the mouth of the mine should be counted as working time, but that the time men spent on the surface in collecting tools, etc., should also he included. The Circuit Court of Appeals, although professing to accept the fact findings of the District Court, reversed its judgment with respect to time spent on the surface, saying no more than that the District Court was wrong in including that time. This is further proof that the decision of the case by both courts below turns on the view of a court as to what ought to be considered work and what not, irrespective of the understanding of the parties. Suppose that the parties had agreed that travel time was working time, and to be included and paid for in the workweek? Would the courts be at liberty to find the contrary and deprive respondents of the benefit of the agreement. I think not.
"If it would be better to include travel time in work time, it ought to be done by a new bargain in which rates of pay are also reviewed. If the change is to be by a special statute (some western States have such statutes), it will operate justly in futuro, and not by unexpected penalty, as here."
is not work time. This is true though the employer may organize a means of transportation and make rules for its use. The agreements here that work time includes only time at the face of the ore bed are not illegal. Digging out the ore is what the miners agree to do, and for that they are paid. Getting their tools together and riding or walking to the agreed place of work is not, by force of any law, work done for the mine owner. No one, I suppose, would say that, if a group of miners who had spent an hour riding to work decided of their own will not to dig any ore and spent another hour riding back, they had done any work for which they should be paid by force of the Act."
"It is now proposed to assess against these appellants as back pay for overtime an estimated quarter of a million dollars, to be doubled by way of penalty, to compensate the miners for their time in going to and from their place of work, in the face of their agreements that this time was not in their work time. They are to get three times as much per hour for riding and walking to and from the work they were hired to do as they get for doing the work itself. The injustice of it to me is shocking."
United States v. Darby, 312 U. S. 100, 312 U. S. 115, 312 U. S. 117, 312 U. S. 122, 312 U. S. 125.

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 § 4
 § 3071
 v. 
 § 10237
 § 63
 § 5
 v. 
 v. 
 v. 
 v. 
 § 16
 v.