Anderson V. Mt. Clemens Pottery Co. - Aftermath

Aftermath

In 1947, Congress enacted the Portal-to-Portal Act to amend the Fair Labor Standards Act in light of the court's ruling in Anderson v. Mt Clemens Pottery Co. The word "portal" refers to the workplace door, so "Portal-to-Portal" could be interpreted to mean that all time spent within that door is work time. However, Section 4 of the 1947 Act required that the determination of whether time spent in preliminary or postliminary activities was "work" under the FLSA was to be based solely on contract, custom, or practice.

Unfortunately, the Portal-to-Portal Act was equally unclear as to what constituted contract, custom or practice. The Supreme Court attempted to clarify the issue in Steiner v. Mitchell, 350 U.S. 247 (1956), by ruling that activities which were "integral" to work (such as the donning of protective clothing) were compensable under the FLSA and Portal-to-Portal Act.

Nearly 50 years later, the Court again revisited the issue of what constituted "work." In IBP, Inc. v. Alvarez, 546 U.S. 21 (2005), the Court again engaged in a fact-specific analysis to conclude that time spent waiting while in protective gear, or time spent walking in protective gear, was compensable working time.