Opinion ID: 200756
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 4

Heading: Roll-Call Pay

Text: 66 The only remaining liability issue is the matter of roll-call pay. The officers challenge the roll-call pay scheme in the CBA on two grounds. First, the officers argue that the FLSA obligates the Town to include the time required for roll-call attendance (ten minutes per shift, according to the CBAs) in the officers' hours worked each week, rather than compensate it separately in the annual lump-sum provided under the CBA. Second, the officers contend that the Town does not compensate them adequately for roll-call attendance because roll-call time often pushes the officers' weekly hours worked over forty. When divided by the total number of hours spent at roll-call during the year, the lump-sum payment under the CBA works out to less than one-and-one-half times the officers' regular rate of pay. 67 The latter issue is easier. The Town does not dispute that the time officers spend at roll-call is compensable work under the FLSA. 27 Cf. Anderson v. Mt. Clemens Pottery Co., 328 U.S. 680, 690-91, 66 S.Ct. 1187, 90 L.Ed. 1515 (1946) (under the FLSA, the compensable workweek ordinarily includes all time during which an employee is necessarily required to be on the employer's premises, on duty or at a prescribed work place). The time that the officers spend at roll-call is fully subject to the overtime rules of the FLSA. So if an officer works five eight-hour shifts in a week and, in addition, attends roll-call for ten minutes before each shift, the Town owes that officer overtime pay for the fifty minutes worked in excess of forty hours. This scheme has the effect that in a given week, some officers will be paid for roll-call attendance at their regular rate, while others will receive time-and-a-half, depending how many shifts they happened to work in that week. But this result is not unfair; it simply reflects Congress's judgment that an employer must pay more for every hour of labor it demands of an employee beyond forty in a week. § 207(a)(1). 68 The more difficult question is whether the FLSA precludes the parties from agreeing by contract that payments for roll-call time shall be made on an annual rather than a weekly basis. There is no requirement in the FLSA that overtime compensation be paid weekly, see 29 C.F.R. § 778.106, and in some circumstances a CBA may provide for a different rule, see Interstate Brands, 57 F.3d at 576. The Town thus urges the court to uphold the parties' contractual agreement that roll-call pay shall be disbursed in an annual lump-sum. But under the Secretary of Labor's interpretative regulations, [t]he general rule is that overtime compensation must be paid on the regular pay day for the period in which such workweek ends. § 778.106. Where practical considerations require departure from that rule, the Secretary has interpreted the Act to mandate prompt payment once the amount can be calculated and the mechanics of the payment arranged: 69 Payment may not be delayed for a period longer than is reasonably necessary for the employer to compute and arrange for payment of the amount due and in no event may payment be delayed beyond the next payday after such computation can be made. 70 Id. (emphasis added). Because § 778.106 is an interpretative bulletin, it does not command formal deference from this court. Batterton v. Francis, 432 U.S. 416, 425 n. 9, 97 S.Ct. 2399, 53 L.Ed.2d 448 (1977); Reich v. Newspapers of New England, Inc., 44 F.3d 1060, 1070 (1st Cir. 1995); Interstate Brands, 57 F.3d at 577. Nevertheless, the Secretary's interpretations have the power to persuade, if lacking power to control, as they constitute a body of experience and informed judgment to which courts and litigants may properly resort for guidance. John Alden Life Ins., 126 F.3d at 8 (quoting Skidmore v. Swift & Co., 323 U.S. 134, 140, 65 S.Ct. 161, 89 L.Ed. 124 (1944)) (internal quotation marks omitted). 71 We will not depart from the Secretary's guidance on this issue. As the Third Circuit recently observed in a factually similar case, the Secretary's rule that overtime payments must be made as soon as practicable provides a clear and useful test for when wages become unpaid under the statute. See Brooks v. Vill. of Ridgefield Park, 185 F.3d 130, 135-36 (3d Cir.1999) (concluding that § 778.106 embodies an important aspect of the FLSA and requiring prompt payment of overtime wages notwithstanding the parties' contractual agreement to defer compensation). Section 778.106 is also consistent with the FLSA's focus on the workweek as its basic unit, cf. 29 C.F.R. §§ 776.4(a) (The workweek is to be taken as the standard in determining the applicability of the act.); 778.104 (The Act takes a single workweek as its standard ....), as well as with the FLSA's purpose to protect workers from the evil of overwork as well as underpay. Barrentine, 450 U.S. at 739, 101 S.Ct. 1437 (quoting Overnight Motor Transp. Co. v. Missel, 316 U.S. 572, 578, 62 S.Ct. 1216, 86 L.Ed. 1682 (1942)) (internal quotation marks omitted). 72 We hold that the Town must include the time required for officers to attend roll-call in the officers' weekly hours worked, that it must compensate the officers accordingly (including overtime premiums when applicable), and that such compensation shall not be delayed longer than the first pay day after the amount can practicably be determined.