travel time allowance calculations

Ordinary man

I work for a construction company in Mayo. Our work is carried out in various sites all around the west. We meet at the company office to pick up company vans and load them with materials at 7 am. We finish working at 5pm. If we are on a local job we could be home at 5.20pm or a far away job home at 6.45. Some nights i keep the van overnight, others i have to return to the office.

Could anyone tell me what hours should i be getting paid for?

Gran Hermano

OP, hard to answer unless you provide some additional info.

What does your employment contract state your hours of
employment are? Are you on a salary or hourly wage?
If on a wage, what are the terms and conditions relating
to payment for overtime and/or travel time?

Ordinary man

My contract is for a standard 39 hr week with time and a half for overtime. It said i had to travel to different jobs. But no mention was made of travel time allowances. I am on hourly rates. The company has a policy from before my time of paying from 7am to 5 pm. Some of the workers live nearer to jobs and go straight home. Going to work may take one driver an hour and a different driver 1 hour 25 minutes. Coming home would be the same. So if 2 drivers left the same job at 5, one of them could be home 25 minutes faster.

seamus

Urgh. This kind of stuff is always a minefield.

I think there's a fair argument to say that your work day starts when arrive at either your place of work, or whatever site you're on. If you have to go to your place of work to "load up", then your working day starts at that point.

Similarly on the way home, if you have to return to the office to return a vehicle or drop off some stuff, then your work day ends when you leave the office to go home. If you go straight home, then your work day ends when you leave the site.

This is all just my opinion of course. IIRC, travelling from your home to your place of work (whether this is a site or not) cannot be paid for by a company. So even if the site is an hour away from your house, and the office is 20 minutes from your house, you can't claim those extra 40 minutes to get home, as working time.

The Doktor

Im not in the construction industry, but I work at different site most of the time. A while ago there was a bit of an argument at work about how things should work, so a few of us asked a union for a bit of advice.
They seemed to think there are 2 ways of working things
1. You start work at the office/depot each day, where u pick up a vehicle and drive to a site. You finish your job and drive back to the office/depot and leave the work vehicle there.
In this situation you are paid from the time you arrive at the depot, till the time you leave.

2. You keep the work vehicle at home, and drive to the site you work from.
In this situation you are paid from the time you leave the house until the time you get back to it.

For myself, I keep the vehicle at home. I start work at 8am (leave the house ) and finish at 5pm (arrive home). If get home later, or leave earlier, I am paid ovetime.
A number of contractor companies who work with us (including construction companies) work in the above two ways.