California Court of Appeal Clarifies Reporting Time Pay

California employers are required to pay employees who report time pay when they show up for work, but don’t work at least half the scheduled shift.  The statute requires that employers pay the greater of two hours or half the scheduled shift, to a maximum of 4 hours.  It was previously unclear whether an employee who shows up for a meeting on a day off should be paid the 2-hour minimum or if the employee should be paid half of his or her average regularly scheduled shift.  In Price v. Starbucks Corporation, the California Court of Appeal has clarified the requirement, holding that a Starbucks employee who went to work for a short meeting on a day on which he was not scheduled to work was correctly paid 2 hours of reporting time pay, and was not due the claimed 3.3 hours of reporting time pay, based on half of the average number of hours generally worked per shift.