Mandatory Roll Call Before Your Shift: Count the Time Before Testing the Overtime Exception

If a collective bargaining agreement makes a pre-shift roll call paid working time, can the employer leave those minutes out of overtime calculations? A January 5, 2026 Department of Labor opinion letter separates two questions: The minutes must enter the hours-worked total, while a qualifying federal partial overtime exemption may change when an overtime premium is due.

Opinion Letter FLSA2026-3 addresses a proposed agreement for county 911 dispatchers. It is fact-dependent agency guidance, not a court judgment approving every union agreement. The Department lacked enough information to confirm that this particular proposal qualified for an exemption. That qualification matters as much as the answer about counting time.

Start with the agreement’s promise to count roll call

The dispatchers worked eight-hour shifts on a four-days-on, two-days-off rotation. The proposed agreement added a mandatory 15-minute roll call before each shift, treating it as hours worked while excluding it from overtime calculations. Bringing workers closer to 2,080 annual hours was the proposal’s stated purpose. That purpose did not permit the county to remove compensable minutes from weekly totals.

The letter’s reasoning has an important boundary: The proposal expressly made roll call compensable by contract. DOL therefore did not decide whether the activity otherwise qualified as excluded preliminary activity under the Portal-to-Portal Act. Do not turn this letter into a universal rule that every activity required before a shift is compensable. The actual duties, agreement, and governing law still matter. Letter at 5.

A six-day rotation does not supply the weekly overtime answer

Four shifts in six days is a scheduling cycle, not the weekly overtime calculation. DOL’s example explains that a calendar workweek could include four or five scheduled shifts. Five shifts of eight hours plus 15 minutes each produce 41.25 hours. The proposed roll call remains in that total even though the annual schedule averages fewer than 40 hours per week. An average cannot answer which premium is owed in a particular week.

For a payroll review, place each actual shift and roll call within the employer’s established workweek. Keep the pay-period total and annual schedule as separate records. Added shifts, extensions, or deviations also belong in the calculation; a schedule projecting compliance does not prove the hours actually worked stayed within an exemption’s limits. Letter at 6–7 and notes 4–7.

A union agreement alone does not establish the exception

The ordinary federal overtime rule generally requires covered, nonexempt employees to receive overtime after 40 hours in a workweek. Sections 7(b)(1) and 7(b)(2) provide specific partial exceptions. Both require an agreement resulting from collective bargaining by representatives certified as bona fide by the National Labor Relations Board, and overtime compensation for hours exceeding 12 in a workday or 56 in a workweek, as applicable. The letter explains that this bona fide certification is distinct from the NLRB procedure for certifying an exclusive bargaining representative. It can concern public-sector unions too. Letter at 3 and note 2.

• Section 7(b)(1): The agreement must provide that an employee will not work more than 1,040 hours in any consecutive 26-week period.
• Section 7(b)(2): The agreement must specify pay rates, establish the required guarantee within a specified 52-week period, cap employment at 2,240 hours, and retain the additional overtime obligations. The guarantee must be at least 1,840 hours, or the statutory alternative of 46 normal weeks of at least 30 hours each, and no more than 2,080 hours.

Under section 7(b)(2), overtime remains payable for hours over 12 per day or 56 per week; after the guarantee is worked, for hours over 40 in a workweek; and for hours over 2,080 in the specified 52 weeks. The letter does not treat 2,240 hours as a premium-free allowance. Letter at 8.

Ask for the records that prove the claimed arrangement

A useful review file contains the operative agreement and amendments, the bona fide certification, the designated measurement periods and guarantee, actual daily and weekly hours, and premium payments. Compare the contractual promise with performance. Exceeding the applicable 1,040-hour or 2,240-hour maximum defeats the respective exemption for that employee and requires recalculation for the relevant period, with appropriate credit for payments already made. Letter at 4, 7–8.

This federal analysis does not resolve California wage-order coverage, contractual benefits beyond federal minimums, or another claimed public-agency exemption. Our Huerta analysis addresses a separate California controlled-time question. For this roll-call issue, the employment practice can review both the counted hours and the specific basis asserted for changing the overtime threshold.