[Code of Federal Regulations]
[Title 29, Volume 3]
[Revised as of July 1, 2004]
From the U.S. Government Printing Office via GPO Access
[CITE: 29CFR531.32]

[Page 167]
 
                             TITLE 29--LABOR
 
         CHAPTER V--WAGE AND HOUR DIVISION, DEPARTMENT OF LABOR
 
PART 531_WAGE PAYMENTS UNDER THE FAIR LABOR STANDARDS ACT OF 1938
--Table of Contents
 
                        Subpart C_Interpretations
 
Sec. 531.32  ``Other facilities.''

    (a) ``Other facilities,'' as used in this section, must be something 
like board or lodging. The following items have been deemed to be within 
the meaning of the term: Meals furnished at company restaurants or 
cafeterias or by hospitals, hotels, or restaurants to their employees; 
meals, dormitory rooms, and tuition furnished by a college to its 
student employees; housing furnished for dwelling purposes; general 
merchandise furnished at company stores and commissaries (including 
articles of food, clothing, and household effects); fuel (including 
coal, kerosene, firewood, and lumber slabs), electricity, water, and gas 
furnished for the noncommercial personal use of the employee; 
transportation furnished employees between their homes and work where 
the travel time does not constitute hours worked compensable under the 
Act and the transportation is not an incident of and necessary to the 
employment.
    (b) Shares of capital stock in an employer company, representing 
only a contingent proprietary right to participate in profits and losses 
or in the assets of the company at some future dissolution date, do not 
appear to be ``facilities'' within the meaning of the section.
    (c) It should also be noted that under Sec. 531.3(d)(1), the cost 
of furnishing ``facilities'' which are primarily for the benefit or 
convenience of the employer will not be recognized as reasonable and may 
not therefore be included in computing wages. Items in addition to those 
set forth in Sec. 531.3 which have been held to be primarily for the 
benefit or convenience of the employer and are not therefore to be 
considered ``facilities'' within the meaning of section 3(m) include: 
Safety caps, explosives, and miners' lamps (in the mining industry); 
electric power (used for commercial production in the interest of the 
employer); company police and guard protection; taxes and insurance on 
the employer's buildings which are not used for lodgings furnished to 
the employee; ``dues'' to chambers of commerce and other organizations 
used, for example, to repay subsidies given to the employer to locate 
his factory in a particular community; transportation charges where such 
transportation is an incident of and necessary to the employment (as in 
the case of maintenance-of-way employees of a railroad); charges for 
rental of uniforms where the nature of the business requires the 
employee to wear a uniform; medical services and hospitalization which 
the employer is bound to furnish under workmen's compensation acts, or 
similar Federal, State, or local law. On the other hand, meals are 
always regarded as primarily for the benefit and convenience of the 
employee. For a discussion of reimbursement for expenses such as 
``supper money,'' ``travel expenses,'' etc., see Sec. 778.217 of this 
chapter.

[[Page 168]]