[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: 29CFR551.8]

[Page 271-272]
 
                             TITLE 29--LABOR
 
         CHAPTER V--WAGE AND HOUR DIVISION, DEPARTMENT OF LABOR
 
PART 551_LOCAL DELIVERY DRIVERS AND HELPERS; WAGE PAYMENT PLANS
--Table of Contents
 
Sec. 551.8  Definitions.

    As used in this part:
    (a) Secretary means the Secretary of Labor.
    (b) Administrator means the Administrator of the Wage and Hour 
Division, United States Department of Labor.
    (c) Finding means a finding made pursuant to section 13(b)(11) of 
the Fair Labor Standards Act as provided in this part.
    (d) Making local deliveries includes the activities customarily and 
regularly performed in the physical transfer, to customers of a business 
establishment situated within the rural or urban community or 
metropolitan area in which the establishment is located, of goods sold 
or otherwise disposed of to such local customers by such establishment. 
Included are activities performed by the driver or driver's helpers as 
an incident to or in conjunction with making such deliveries, such as 
picking up and returning the delivery vehicle at the beginning and end 
of the workday, cleaning the vehicle, checking it to see that it is in 
operating condition, loading and unloading or assisting in loading or 
unloading the goods, and picking up empty containers or other goods from 
customers for return to the establishment. Not included in the making of 
local deliveries are such transportation as the carriage of passengers; 
the transportation of any load of goods that would normally require a 
round trip longer than a single workday for delivery and return to the 
starting point; any movement of goods which does not accomplish a 
transfer of possession from one person to another; transportation of 
goods as a part of a process of production; and transportation of goods 
within a local community or metropolitan area as an integral part of a 
carriage of such goods from a point outside such community or area to a 
destination within it, rather than as a part of the activities 
customarily performed in making local deliveries, as defined in this 
section, in the same manner as deliveries of goods held locally for 
local disposition.
    (e) Employee employed as a driver or driver's helper making local 
deliveries includes any employee who is employed in any workweek:
    (1) To drive a delivery vehicle used in making local deliveries, or
    (2) To assist the driver of such a vehicle in making such 
deliveries, being required to ride on the vehicle to perform such work,

and whose work in making local deliveries, as defined in paragraph (d) 
of this section, accounts for at least 80 percent of his hours of work 
in such workweek. In making and applying any finding as provided in this 
part, no employee shall be considered to be employed as a driver or 
driver's helper making local deliveries in any workweek when more than 
20 percent of his hours of work results from the performance of duties

[[Page 272]]

other than those included in making such local deliveries.
    (f) A plan of compensation on the basis of trip rates or other 
delivery payment plan means any plan whereby employees employed as 
drivers or drivers' helpers making local deliveries are compensated for 
their employment on a basis such that the amount of payment which they 
receive is governed in substantial part by a system of wage payments 
based on units of work measurement such as numbers of trips taken, miles 
driven, stops made, or units of goods delivered (but not including any 
plan based solely on the number of hours worked) so that there is a 
substantial inducement to employees to minimize the number of hours 
worked.
    (g) For purposes of determining whether and to what extent a plan of 
compensation on the basis of trip rates or other delivery payment plan 
has the effect of reducing the weekly hours worked by employees employed 
by an employer as drivers or drivers' helpers making local deliveries 
pursuant to such plan:
    (1) The most recently completed representative period of one year 
(Sec. 551.2(c)) or most recent representative annual period (Sec. 
551.5(b)(3)) shall mean a one-year period within which such employees 
were so employed on a regular full-time basis by such employer (or, if 
such employer has not previously used such plan, by another employer 
using the plan under substantially the same conditions, which period 
shall include a calendar or fiscal quarter-year ending not more than 
four months prior to the date as of which the effect of such plan is to 
be considered, together with the three quarter-year periods immediately 
preceding such recently completed quarter-year; and
    (2) The average weekly hours or average workweek of the full-time 
employees so employed during such annual period shall mean the number of 
hours obtained by the following computation: (i) All the hours worked 
during such annual period by all the full-time employees regularly 
employed under the plan shall be totaled; (ii) the number of workweeks 
worked by each such employee during such annual period under such plan 
shall be computed, and the totals added together; and (iii) the average 
weekly hours, taken in the aggregate, of all such employees shall be 
computed by dividing the sum resulting from computation (i) by the sum 
resulting from computation (ii).