§ 1620.3 - General coverage of employees “engaged in * * * the production of goods for commerce.”

§ 1620.3 General coverage of employees “engaged in * * * the production of goods for commerce.”

(a) Like the FLSA, the EPA applies to employees “engaged in * * * the production of goods for commerce.” The broad meaning of “commerce” as defined in section 3(b) of the FLSA has been outlind in § 1620.2. “Goods” is also comprehensively defined in section 3(i) of the FLSA and includes “articles or subjects of commerce of any character, or any part or ingredient thereof” not expressly excepted by the statute. The activities constituting “production” of the goods for commerce are defined in section 3(j) of the FLSA. These are not limited to such work as manufacturing but include handling or otherwise working on goods intended for shipment out of the State either directly or indirectly or for use within the State to serve the needs of the instrumentalities or facilities by which interstate or foreign commerce is carried on. Employees engaged in any closely related process or occupation directly essential to such production of any goods, whether employed by the producer or by an independent employer, are also engaged, by definition, in “production.” Thus, employees engaged in the administration, planning, management, and control of the various physical processes together with the accompanying clerical and accounting activities are, from a productive standpoint and for purposes of the FLSA, “engaged in the production of goods for commerce.”

(b) Employees engaged in the production of goods for interstate or foreign commerce include those who work in manufacturing, processing, and distributing establishments, including wholesale and retail establishments that “produce” (including handling or working on) goods for such commerce. This includes everyone employed in such establishments, or elsewhere in the enterprises by which they are operated, whose activities constitute “production” of such goods under the principles outlined in paragraph (a) of this section. Thus, employees who sell, process, load, pack, or otherwise handle or work on goods which are to be shipped or delivered outside the State either by their employer or by another firm, and either in the same form or as a part or ingredient of other goods, are engaged in the production of goods for commerce within the coverage of the FLSA. So also are the office, management, sales, and shipping personnel, and maintenance, custodial, and protective employees who perform as a part of the integrated effort for the production of the goods for commerce, services related to such production or to such goods or to the plant, equipment, or personnel by which the production is accomplished.