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IBP, INC. v. ALVAREZ Opinion of the Court
time spent traveling from the place of performance of one principal activity to that of another). See also § 785.38 (ex plaining, in a later regulation interpreting the FLSA, that “[w]here an employee is required to report at a meeting place to receive instructions or to perform other work there, or to pick up and to carry tools, the travel from the designated place to the work place is part of the day’s work, and must be counted as hours worked . . . ”). IBP argues, however, that two provisions in the regula tions point to a different conclusion—the use of the phrase “whistle to whistle” in discussing the limits of the “workday,” § 790.6, and a footnote stating that postchanging walking time is not “necessarily” excluded from the scope of § 4(a)(1), § 790.7(g), n. 49. The “whistle to whistle” reference does reflect the view that in most situations the workday will be defined by the beginning and ending of the primary productive activity. But the relevant text describes the workday as “roughly the period ‘from whistle to whistle.’ ” § 790.6(a) (emphasis added). Indeed, the next subsection of this same regulation states: “ ‘Workday’ as used in the Portal Act means, in gen eral, the period between the commencement and completion on the same workday of an employee’s principal activity or activities.” § 790.6(b). IBP’s emphasis on the “whistle to whistle” reference is unavailing. The footnote on which IBP relies states: “Washing up after work, like the changing of clothes, may in certain situations be so directly related to the specific work the employee is employed to perform that it would be regarded as an integral part of the em ployee’s ‘principal activity.’ This does not necessarily mean, however, that travel between the washroom or clothes-changing place and the actual place of perform ance of the specific work the employee is employed to perform, would be excluded from the type of travel to
