I am an electrician apprentice. I work for a small electrical services company. There are four employees, including myself. I have been working here for one week.
Every day, we meet at the shop. From there, we drive company vehicles from jobsite to jobsite. At the end of the day, we drive the company vehicles from the last jobsite back to the shop before heading home.
My employer does not pay us for the time spent driving from the last jobsite back to the shop. I don't think that is fair because driving the company vehicles back to the shop is still work; we're not doing it for the fun of it and we need to return to the shop to put the vehicles away before heading home. Our personal vehicles are at the shop all day.
My gut tells me that we should be compensated for the time we spend driving the company vehicle back to the shop. I was looking for labor laws to support this. I found an explanation of the portal-to-portal act and as part of an example of when travel time should be compensated, it says in part “…the general contractor would be required to include the time spent traveling between the offices and the construction site in the hours worked by each employee.”
Am I right? Is this illegal? If so, what labor laws could I point to to show him this is illegal?