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OCTOBER TERM, 2005

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Syllabus

IBP, INC. v. ALVAREZ, individually and on behalf of all others similarly situated, et al. certiorari to the united states court of appeals for the ninth circuit No. 03–1238. Argued October 3, 2005—Decided November 8, 2005* After this Court ruled that the term “workweek” in the Fair Labor Stand­ ards Act of 1938 (FLSA) included the time employees spent walking from time clocks near a factory entrance to their workstations, Ander­ son v. Mt. Clemens Pottery Co., 328 U. S. 680, 691–692, Congress passed the Portal-to-Portal Act of 1947, which, inter alia, excepted from FLSA coverage walking on the employer’s premises to and from the location of the employee’s “principal activity or activities,” § 4(a)(1), and activi­ ties that are “preliminary or postliminary” to “said principal activity or activities,” § 4(a)(2). The Act did not otherwise change this Court’s descriptions of “work” and “workweek” or deﬁne “workday.” Regula­ tions promulgated by the Secretary of Labor shortly thereafter con­ cluded that the Act did not affect the computation of hours within a “workday,” 29 CFR § 790.6(a), which includes “the period between the commencement and completion” of the “principal activity or activities,” § 790.6(b). Eight years after the enactment of the Portal-to-Portal Act and these interpretative regulations, the Court explained that the “term ‘principal activity or activities’. . . embraces all activities which are ‘an integral and indispensable part of the principal activities,’ ” including the donning and dofﬁng of specialized protective gear “before or after the regular work shift, on or off the production line.” Steiner v. Mitch­ ell, 350 U. S. 247, 256. In No. 03–1238, respondent employees ﬁled a class action seeking com­ pensation for time spent donning and dofﬁng required protective gear and walking from the locker rooms to the production ﬂoor of a meat processing facility owned by petitioner IBP, Inc. (IBP), and back. The District Court found the activities compensable, and the Ninth Circuit afﬁrmed. In No. 04–66, petitioner employees sought compensation for time spent donning and dofﬁng required protective gear at a poultry processing plant operated by respondent Barber Foods, Inc. (Barber), Foods, on certiorari to the United States Court of Appeals for the First Circuit.
 * Together with No. 04–66, Tum et al. v. Barber Foods, Inc., dba Barber