Changing Clothes: Socks In The City.

Steelworkers brought an action under the Fair Labor Standards Act [FLSA; 29 U.S.C. § 203(o)],alleging their employer violated the FLSA by failing to compensate them for time spent donning and doffing protective gear, a process involving donning a flame-retardant jacket, pants and hood, a hardhat, a snood, wristlets, work gloves, leggings, metatarsal boots, safety glasses, earplugs and a respirator. The federal district court granted defendant summary judgment, reasoning that donning and doffing protective gear amounted to changing clothes. In 1949, Congress amended the FLSA to state in part:  “In determining for the purposes of the minimum wage and maximum hours sections of this title the hours for which an employee is employed, there shall be excluded any time spent in changing clothes . . .,” which language basically means that compensation for time spent changing clothes is a matter left to collective bargaining. The United States Supreme Court agreed with the trial court and affirmed, holding that donning and doffing protective gear amounted to changing clothes. (Sandifer v. U.S. Steel Corp.  (U.S. Sup. Ct.; January 27, 2014) 134 S.Ct. 870, [187 L.Ed.2d 729].)