546US1
Unit: $$U5
[08-22-08 13:38:19] PAGES PGT: OPIN
Cite as: 546 U. S. 21 (2005)
29
Opinion of the Court
larly, consistent with our prior decisions interpreting the FLSA, the Department of Labor has adopted the continuous workday rule, which means that the “workday” is generally defined as “the period between the commencement and com pletion on the same workday of an employee’s principal activ ity or activities.” § 790.6(b). These regulations have re mained in effect since 1947, see 12 Fed. Reg. 7658 (1947), and no party disputes the validity of the continuous workday rule. In 1955, eight years after the enactment of the Portal-toPortal Act and the promulgation of these interpretive regu lations, we were confronted with the question whether work ers in a battery plant had a statutory right to compensation for the “time incident to changing clothes at the beginning of the shift and showering at the end, where they must make extensive use of dangerously caustic and toxic materials, and are compelled by circumstances, including vital considera tions of health and hygiene, to change clothes and to shower in facilities which state law requires their employers to provide . . . .” Steiner v. Mitchell, 350 U. S. 247, 248 (1956). After distinguishing “changing clothes and showering under normal conditions” and stressing the important health and safety risks associated with the production of batteries, id., at 249, the Court endorsed the Court of Appeals’ conclusion that these activities were compensable under the FLSA. In reaching this result, we specifically agreed with the Court of Appeals that “the term ‘principal activity or ac tivities’ in Section 4 [of the Portal-to-Portal Act] embraces all activities which are an ‘integral and indispensable part of hours worked to the same extent as would be required if the Portal Act had not been enacted. The principles for determining hours worked within the ‘workday’ proper will continue to be those established under the Fair Labor Standards Act without reference to the Portal Act, which is concerned with this question only as it relates to time spent outside the ‘workday’ in activities of the kind described in section 4.” § 790.6(a) (footnotes omitted).
