Doc needs to pay up for drive

Q: I'm an hourly receptionist for a large medical practice with multiple offices. Most days I have to work at one office in the morning and another office in the afternoon. I'm required to clock out when I leave the first office and clock in at the second office, with a 30-minute, unpaid lunch break often included as part of the drive time.

I'm paid a set reimbursement for each of these drives, but most days the reimbursement works out to less than my hourly rate. Is my employer's pay practice legal?

A: No, not as you described it. Once your workday starts, all the time you spend in work-related activities — including traveling from one work site to another — should be on the pay clock, said Carlos Burruezo, a labor and employment lawyer with Littler Mendelson in Orlando, Fla.

Your case is somewhat complicated by the fact that your employer is paying you for these trips. But even if the reimbursement were more than your hourly rate, it must be done on the clock.

The reason, Burruezo explained, is that the time you spend driving from one site to another is part of your work week and must be counted for purposes of overtime.

For example, if, in a given week, you spent 38 hours in your reception job and another four hours driving from one work site to another, your employer would owe you time-and-a-half for two hours of overtime.

Your employer could pay a lower hourly rate for your drive time, Burruezo said, but that would complicate the calculation of your correct overtime rate.

And, he added, your unpaid lunch break is legal only if you have no work-related duties during the break. Driving to another office is a work- related duty.

He suggests going to your employer first and asking to be compensated properly under the Fair Labor Standards Act. Your other options are to report your employer to the Wage & Hour Division of the U.S. Department of Labor or to contact a lawyer who specializes in representing employees in wage-and-hour issues.

Hard-working women

The still-common belief that professional women take prolonged absences from the work force when they have children is not supported by data from the U.S. government, according to a new analysis.

Fewer than one in 10 professional women born since 1956 leave the work force for a year or more during their prime childbearing years, according to a study published in the American Sociological Review.

The influence of children and marriage on professional women is weakening, writes Christine Percheski, a doctoral candidate in sociology at Princeton University. She studied U.S. Census data about college-educated professional women from 1960 to 2005.

More women with children are working, and they're working longer hours, according to Percheski's research. She reported that 15 percent of professional working mothers born after 1956 work more than 50 hours per week.

Reach Harry Wessel at hwessel@orlandosentinel.com.