Short Rest Breaks Are Compensable Under The FLSA

This month, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit held that the Fair Labor Standards Act ("FLSA") requires employers to compensate employees for all rest breaks of twenty minutes or less.

Background

American Future Systems arose from a suit filed by the U.S. Department of Labor ("DOL") on behalf of former employees of publishing company American Future Systems, Inc. dba Progressive Business Publications ("Progressive") under the FLSA. Progressive employed sales representatives who were paid by the hour and received bonuses based on the number of sales made while they were logged onto their work computers. These employees were previously subject to a policy which gave them two fifteen-minute paid breaks per day, however, Progressive eliminated the policy in favor of a so-called "flexible time" policy under which they could log-off their work computers at any time, for any reason. Although employees were free to take as many breaks as they wanted, they