I. Introduction

This Eleventh Circuit decision addresses recurring questions at the intersection of the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA), the Portal‑to‑Portal Act, and the realities of modern temporary staffing and day‑labor arrangements. The court is asked to decide three central issues:

1. Whether a staffing agency may deduct the cost of optional transportation from workers’ wages without violating federal and Florida minimum wage laws;
2. Whether certain time categories—(a) travel from a central labor hall to dispersed jobsites, (b) time spent collecting and returning tools, and (c) waiting time at the labor hall or for transportation—are compensable work time under the FLSA; and
3. Whether a putative class under Florida’s Labor Pool Act alleging excessive transportation charges meets Rule 23(b)(3)’s predominance requirement.

The plaintiffs are “daily ticket workers” who gather each day at Pacesetter’s labor hall, sign in as available, and, if assigned, receive a “ticket” detailing the worksite, time, and needed equipment. Pacesetter offers, but does not require, transportation (via vans or carpools with other workers) and basic tools (e.g., gloves, goggles, shovels). For those who choose these services, Pacesetter deducts a modest fee from wages.

The workers contend that:

• Transportation deductions unlawfully drive their effective wages below the minimum wage;
• They must be paid for travel time, tool‑collection/return time, and waiting time under the FLSA and the Florida Minimum Wage Act; and
• Pacesetter violated Florida’s Labor Pool Act by charging more than the statutory maximum for transportation and that these claims are suitable for class treatment.

The Eleventh Circuit affirms the district court’s grants of summary judgment for Pacesetter on the FLSA/Florida minimum wage issues and affirms the denial of Rule 23 class certification of an excessive‑transportation‑charge subclass.

Doctrinally, the opinion is significant for three reasons:

1. It clarifies when employer‑facilitated transportation is treated as an optional, employee‑benefiting “facility” the cost of which may be deducted from wages;
2. It applies the “integral and indispensable” test to three recurring categories of alleged work time—travel, tool handling, and waiting—in the context of day‑labor staffing; and
3. It reinforces a relatively demanding view of Rule 23(b)(3) predominance in wage‑and‑hour cases involving individualized transportation charges and credits.

II. Summary of the Opinion

A. Transportation Deduction Claims

The plaintiffs claimed that Pacesetter’s deduction of $3.00 per day ($1.50 each way) from the wages of workers who used its vans or carpools effectively reduced their pay below the minimum wage, allegedly violating the FLSA and the Florida Minimum Wage Act (FMWA).

The court holds:

• Under FLSA regulations (29 C.F.R. § 531.35 and § 531.32(c)), an employer may not shift its own business expenses to employees if such costs are “for the employer’s benefit.” However, Pacesetter’s transportation is optional, not required, and is primarily for employees’ benefit as a commuting option. Therefore, the transportation charges are permissible deductions and do not violate the minimum wage laws.

B. Compensability of Travel, Tool, and Waiting Time

The plaintiffs also argued that Pacesetter should have paid for:

1. Travel from the labor hall to and from client jobsites;
2. Time spent at the labor hall collecting and returning Pacesetter’s tools; and
3. Waiting time at the labor hall and waiting for transportation.

Applying the Portal‑to‑Portal Act (29 U.S.C. § 254) and the Supreme Court’s “integral and indispensable” standard in Integrity Staffing Solutions, Inc. v. Busk, the Eleventh Circuit concludes:

• Travel time between the labor hall and client worksites is non‑compensable normal commuting or preliminary/postliminary travel, even if facilitating transport is part of Pacesetter’s business model.
• Tool collection and return time is non‑compensable because tools are optional (workers can bring their own or use client‑provided tools), not all jobs require tools, and generic tools are not “intrinsic elements” of the workers’ core duties.
• Waiting time at the labor hall or for transport is also non‑compensable preliminary activity; workers are not required to report to the hall on any given day, may go directly to jobsites, routinely use the time for personal pursuits, and their pay is understood to run only at the client jobsite.

C. Class Certification Under the Florida Labor Pool Act (FLPA)

Under the Florida Labor Pool Act, transportation charges by labor pools are capped at $1.50 each way (Fla. Stat. § 448.24(1)(b)). Plaintiffs sought certification of a subclass claiming that some workers were charged more than $3.00 per day.

The district court denied certification under Rule 23(b)(3), finding that individual issues predominated. The Eleventh Circuit affirms, noting:

• Pacesetter’s records show both “overcharges” and “credits,” as well as bus pass purchases that may have been for personal use at a discount;
• Determining whether any particular charge violated the statute requires transaction‑specific analysis as to whether the charge was for work‑related transportation or personal bus passes, and how credits offset charges;
• This would devolve into a series of mini‑trials and thus fail Rule 23(b)(3)’s predominance requirement.

Accordingly, the court:

• Affirms summary judgment for Pacesetter on all FLSA and FMWA claims; and
• Affirms the denial of class certification for the FLPA transportation‑charge subclass.

III. Detailed Analysis

A. The Transportation Deduction: “For the Employer’s Benefit” vs. Optional Commuting Benefit

1. Legal Framework

The FLSA requires employers to pay a minimum wage (29 U.S.C. § 206(a)(1)). Regulations developed by the Department of Labor (DOL) elaborate that:

• Wages must be paid “free and clear” of any “kickback” that effectively returns part of the wage to the employer (29 C.F.R. § 531.35);
• An employer cannot shift costs that are “primarily for the benefit or convenience of the employer” to the employee if doing so pushes the wage below the minimum (29 C.F.R. § 531.32(c));
• Conversely, certain facilities (e.g., board, lodging, and other facilities “primarily for the benefit of the employee”) can be charged to the employee or credited as part of wages under 29 U.S.C. § 203(m) and 29 C.F.R. § 531.32(a), subject to a “reasonable cost” ceiling (§ 531.36(a)).

The core inquiry here: is the transportation Pacesetter provides a business expense (employer‑benefit) or an optional employee benefit akin to commuting assistance?

2. Eleventh Circuit Precedent: Arriaga and Ramos‑Barrientos

The plaintiffs relied heavily on Arriaga v. Florida Pacific Farms, L.L.C., 305 F.3d 1228 (11th Cir. 2002). In Arriaga, agricultural employers participating in the H‑2A guest‑worker program deducted from workers’ wages the cost of travel from Mexico to the United States and associated immigration expenses. The Eleventh Circuit held:

Such travel and visa expenses were “an incident of and necessary to” the work and thus primarily benefited the employer, so the employer could not pass them on to workers if doing so reduced wages below the minimum.

Similarly, in Ramos‑Barrientos v. Bland, 661 F.3d 587 (11th Cir. 2011), the court reaffirmed that employers may not use deductions to do an “end run” around the FLSA’s minimum wage by offloading employer business expenses.

Key distinction drawn in Villarino: The court explains that Arriaga dealt with cross‑border, program‑specific travel that is a legal and practical prerequisite for employment (H‑2A work cannot be performed without international travel under the employer’s sponsorship). By contrast, Pacesetter workers are local daily laborers; job‑hall‑to‑worksite travel is akin to an ordinary commute.

3. Factual Findings: Why Pacesetter’s Transportation Was Treated as Optional and Employee‑Benefiting

The court gives considerable weight to the actual structure of Pacesetter’s system and workers’ testimony:

• The written transportation agreement tells workers that:
  • It is the worker’s responsibility to arrive at the worksite on time; and
  • Workers have options: their own vehicles, public transit, Pacesetter vans, or coworker carpools.
• Pacesetter’s regional vice president testified that customers never required workers to arrive via Pacesetter vehicles.
• Workers’ depositions confirm they were aware they could arrive by bus, rideshare, their own car, or Pacesetter transport, and that some frequently used multiple modes.

These facts support the conclusion that:

• Transportation was not a condition of getting the job; it was an optional convenience for employees;
• Pacesetter’s business did benefit from reliable worker arrival, but that incidental employer benefit does not transform the cost into a non‑deductible employer business expense.

For illustration, the court analogizes to a hypothetical workplace cafeteria: charging employees for optional breakfast, even if it helps them be more punctual or energetic, does not convert the food into an employer business expense that must be provided free.

4. The “Reasonable Cost” and § 203(m) Issue

Pacesetter also argued that transportation costs could be treated as “other facilities” under 29 U.S.C. § 203(m)(1), counting towards minimum wage. The court notes:

• This point is technically beside the core dispute, because no party claimed Pacesetter’s cash wages themselves fell below the minimum.
• Under § 531.36(a), if the price charged for a facility does not exceed its “reasonable cost,” the employer can deduct it even if the deduction reduces cash wages below the statutory minimum—provided the facility is for the employee’s benefit and properly treated as a wage credit.
• No one argued that Pacesetter’s $3.00 daily charge exceeded reasonable cost; thus, the court does not find illegality on this ground.

Outcome: Pacesetter’s transportation deductions do not violate the FLSA or FMWA because the service is optional, primarily benefits employees, and functions as a commuting option, not as a recoupment of core business expenses.

B. Travel Time: Portal‑to‑Portal Act and Ordinary Commuting

1. Statutory and Regulatory Baseline

The 1947 Portal‑to‑Portal Act (29 U.S.C. § 254) was enacted specifically to limit employer liability for preliminary and postliminary activities after early FLSA decisions threatened expansive liability. It provides that employers need not pay for:

• Travel time: “walking, riding, or traveling to and from the actual place of performance of the principal activity or activities” (§ 254(a)(1)); and
• Preliminary/postliminary activities: other activities performed before or after the principal job activity (§ 254(a)(2)).

DOL regulations mirror this:

• “Normal travel from home to work is not worktime” (29 C.F.R. § 785.35);
• Examples include travel between a town and an outlying mine or factory, or from a logging camp to the logging site (29 C.F.R. § 790.7(f)).

The Eleventh Circuit has previously cautioned, in Bonilla v. Baker Concrete Construction, Inc., 487 F.3d 1340 (11th Cir. 2007), that:

If “mere causal necessity” were enough to make an activity compensable, then all commuting would be compensable, because having to get to work is always a practical necessity.

2. The DOL Field Operations Handbook and Skidmore Deference

The court draws on DOL’s Field Operations Handbook (FOH), particularly § 31c09, which addresses temporary labor firms:

Travel from a central location (like Pacesetter’s labor hall) to a customer’s establishment and back is treated as non‑compensable if the “employment understanding clearly is that the pay or the time of the employee begins and ends at the customer’s establishment.”

Although not binding, the court finds the FOH persuasive under Skidmore v. Swift & Co., 323 U.S. 134 (1944), and, notably, cites Loper Bright Enterprises v. Raimondo, 603 U.S. 369 (2024), emphasizing that agencies now receive weight based on persuasiveness rather than Chevron deference.

3. Application to Pacesetter’s Daily Ticket Workers

The court treats the travel from the Pacesetter labor hall to individual jobsites as akin to travel from home to work, not as compensable on‑the‑clock travel:

• The workers decide “when, if, and for what days they wish to seek and accept assignments” and appear at the labor hall voluntarily to seek work.
• They are not doing “work” while traveling—no one argues they perform job duties during transit.
• The core understanding is that pay begins at the customer worksite and ends there; the FOH approach therefore squarely applies.

Plaintiffs argued that because they are “required” to report to the labor hall, their travel from the hall to jobsites should be compensated under 29 C.F.R. § 785.38, which provides that when employees are required to report to a meeting place to receive assignments and then travel to a worksite, this travel can be compensable.

The court rejects that characterization:

• Arriving at the hall is not a requirement; workers appear by choice on days they wish to work.
• Thus, they do not fit the scenario of being “required” to report to a central spot in furtherance of their existing job duties.

Conclusion: Travel between the labor hall and worksites remains non‑compensable preliminary/postliminary commuting under the Portal‑to‑Portal Act and regulations. The fact that Pacesetter coordinates or provides transportation does not change this classification.

C. Tool Collection and Return Time: The “Integral and Indispensable” Standard

1. The Supreme Court’s “Integral and Indispensable” Test

The central question for non‑travel pre‑ and post‑shift activities is whether they are:

“Integral and indispensable part of the principal activities” the employee is employed to perform. – Integrity Staffing Solutions, Inc. v. Busk, 574 U.S. 27, 33 (2014)

Key points from Busk and earlier cases:

• An activity is integral if it is an “intrinsic element” of the principal activities—part of the job itself, not merely helpful to it.
• An activity is indispensable if it “cannot be dispensed with, remitted, set aside, disregarded, or neglected” if the job is to be performed safely and effectively.
• That an employer requires an activity or that it benefits the employer does not automatically make it integral and indispensable.

The Supreme Court has found integral and indispensable status, for example, where:

• Battery‑plant workers had to shower and change due to toxic chemicals (Steiner v. Mitchell, 350 U.S. 247 (1956));
• Meatpackers had to sharpen knives critical to the quality and safety of the meat and hides (Mitchell v. King Packing Co., 350 U.S. 260 (1956)).

Contra examples, where time was held not to be integral and indispensable:

• Warehouse workers waiting for and undergoing security screenings (Busk);
• Poultry workers waiting to don gear where the waiting itself, as distinct from the donning, was not closely tied to productive work (IBP, Inc. v. Alvarez, 546 U.S. 21 (2005)).

2. Eleventh Circuit and Other Appellate Guidance

The opinion relies on:

• Llorca v. Sheriff, Collier County, 893 F.3d 1319 (11th Cir. 2018), holding that sheriff’s deputies’ time spent donning/doffing protective gear at home was not integral and indispensable to their law enforcement duties;
• Balestrieri v. Menlo Park Fire Protection District, 800 F.3d 1094 (9th Cir. 2015), holding firefighter’s time collecting and transporting gear to a station was non‑compensable preliminary activity;
• Kosakow v. New Rochelle Radiology Associates, P.C., 274 F.3d 706 (2d Cir. 2001), holding that pre‑shift activities turning on an X‑ray machine and running tests were integral to a radiology technologist’s patient‑facing practice because the machine had to be operable at opening time.

3. Application to Generic Tools for Daily Ticket Workers

Pacesetter’s workers could:

• Bring their own tools;
• Use tools supplied at the jobsite by Pacesetter’s clients; or
• Borrow generic tools from Pacesetter at the labor hall (e.g., goggles, gloves, shovels, masks, boots).

The record shows:

• Not all jobs require tools;
• Not all tools are required for every worker or every shift;
• Some workers (including Villarino) brought personal tools instead of using Pacesetter’s.

The court’s reasoning:

• Because tools are optional in many circumstances and not uniformly required for job performance, tool collection and return cannot be characterized as activities that “cannot be dispensed with” for the job to be done.
• Tool pickup involves generic equipment and may or may not be necessary for particular jobs or workers, unlike specialized protective gear in hazardous occupations.
• Some workers may secure work at a jobsite even if they arrive without recommended tools; the absence of tools may affect productivity or comfort but does not extinguish the possibility of work itself.

By contrast, in Alvarez the Supreme Court treated donning certain protective equipment in a meat processing plant as integral and indispensable because such gear was “always essential” to performing the job safely and lawfully. The Eleventh Circuit finds that Pacesetter’s generic tools do not rise to that level.

Result: Time spent collecting and returning Pacesetter‑issued tools at the labor hall is a non‑compensable preliminary/postliminary activity under § 254(a)(2).

D. Waiting Time at the Labor Hall and for Transportation

1. Legal Concept: When Is Waiting Time Work?

Under FLSA principles, waiting time is compensable when an employee is “engaged to wait” (i.e., waiting is part of the job, and the employee cannot use the time effectively for their own purposes) and non‑compensable when the employee is “waiting to be engaged” (i.e., time is essentially the employee’s and they can use it freely).

In the Portal‑to‑Portal context, the same “integral and indispensable” test applies to waiting activities: is the waiting itself an intrinsic and indispensable element of the principal work?

2. Evidence and the FOH

The FOH once again supplies a baseline: time “waiting for assignments” at a central location is non‑compensable where the “employment understanding” is that pay begins at the customer’s site (FOH § 31c09).

The court also notes:

• A prior DOL audit of Pacesetter’s Orlando labor hall (2016–2018) concluded there were no minimum wage violations and explicitly stated that “time waiting for assignment or travelling from the central location to the worksite is not compensable.”
• Multiple workers testified they understood they would be paid only for time at the jobsite and used waiting time to sleep, watch the news, smoke, or buy coffee.

3. Application: Why Waiting Time Is Not Integral and Indispensable

Plaintiffs argued that post‑ticket waiting time (after receiving a daily ticket) should be compensable because:

• They allegedly had to wait at the labor hall for Pacesetter‑coordinated transportation; and
• They could not effectively use this time for their own purposes.

The court rejects this:

• Workers are not required to wait for Pacesetter transportation; they may proceed directly to the jobsite by other means.
• Their voluntary presence at the hall and their personal uses of the time (news, coffee, sleeping, smoking) show significant freedom to use the time for personal purposes.
• Even if Pacesetter had required them to wait for transportation, Busk teaches that “required” does not equal “integral and indispensable.” The test is tethered to whether the activity is itself part of the productive work duties, not merely a logistical requirement imposed by the employer.

The court analogizes again to Alvarez and Busk:

• In Alvarez, waiting to don gear was not closely related enough to the productive activity on the line to be compensable;
• In Busk, waiting to undergo security screening was not integral and indispensable to warehouse work.

Similarly, Pacesetter’s workers’ waiting is not productive labor and is not an intrinsic element of their principal activities at jobsites.

Result: Waiting time at the labor hall for assignments or transportation is non‑compensable preliminary activity under the FLSA and the Portal‑to‑Portal Act.

E. Class Certification: Predominance and Individualized Transportation Charges

1. Rule 23(b)(3) Standard

To certify a damages class under Rule 23(b)(3), the court must find that:

“Questions of law or fact common to class members predominate over any questions affecting only individual members.”

The Eleventh Circuit, citing Cherry v. Dometic Corp., 986 F.3d 1296 (11th Cir. 2021), Vega v. T‑Mobile USA, Inc., 564 F.3d 1256 (11th Cir. 2009), and Sellers v. Rushmore Loan Management Services, LLC, 941 F.3d 1031 (11th Cir. 2019), emphasizes:

• Certification is inappropriate when adjudicating class claims would require extensive individualized proof to resolve liability or damages.
• It is not enough that computer records exist; predominance examines whether common questions drive the resolution of claims, not whether data is administratively accessible.

The former Fifth Circuit’s decision in Roper v. Consurve, Inc., 578 F.2d 1106 (5th Cir. 1978) (binding in the Eleventh Circuit under Bonner v. City of Prichard) cautioned that some individualized determinations are tolerable when they can be based on objective criteria easily extracted from records. Plaintiffs relied on Roper to argue that Pacesetter’s own computerized records should facilitate common‑issue predominance.

2. Why Predominance Failed for the Florida Labor Pool Act Subclass

The FLPA limits transportation charges by labor pools to $1.50 each way (Fla. Stat. § 448.24(1)(b)). Plaintiffs proposed a subclass of workers allegedly charged more than $3.00 per day. The district court and the Eleventh Circuit found predominance lacking because:

• Pacesetter’s records showed that some “overcharges” might reflect:
  • Work‑related transportation;
  • Personal bus passes sold to workers at a discount (non‑wage, voluntary purchases);
  • Offsetting credits applied on other days.
• Determining whether each purported “overcharge” violated the FLPA would require:
  • Examining the nature and purpose of each charge;
  • Determining whether bus passes were for personal or work use;
  • Evaluating whether and how credits offset charges.
• These inquiries are individualized; aggregate records do not by themselves reveal legality.

The court cites Andrews v. American Telephone & Telegraph Co., 95 F.3d 1014 (11th Cir. 1996), for the warning that a class is improper when determining the legality of deductions would devolve into “an unmanageable variety of individual legal and factual issues.”

Thus, while there may be common questions (e.g., what does the statute permit? what is Pacesetter’s general practice?), they do not predominate because:

Resolution of each class member’s claim depends critically on transaction‑specific facts about their particular charges and credits.

Result: No abuse of discretion in denying certification of the excessive‑transportation‑charge subclass under Rule 23(b)(3).

IV. Simplifying Key Legal Concepts

A. “For the Employer’s Benefit” vs. “For the Employee’s Benefit”

Under the FLSA’s “kickback” and “other facilities” rules:

• If a cost is primarily for the employer’s benefit (e.g., tools the employer must furnish under law, mandatory uniforms, visa fees for foreign workers, essential travel to get into the country under an employer‑sponsored program), it generally may not be charged to employees when it would reduce wages below the minimum.
• If a cost is primarily for the employee’s benefit (e.g., optional meals, lodging, or commuting options), the employer may often deduct or charge for it (subject to “reasonable cost” limits) even if it reduces the cash wage component, as long as overall wages remain lawfully structured.

The core question is practical: Who really needs this expense to be paid for the business to operate or for the worker to perform the job?

B. The Portal‑to‑Portal Act: What Is a “Principal Activity”?

The Portal‑to‑Portal Act carves out from compensation:

• Time spent “walking, riding, or traveling” to and from the place where the job is actually performed;
• Time spent on activities before or after the “principal activity” unless those activities are integral and indispensable to that principal activity.

A “principal activity” is essentially the main work the employee is hired to do: serving customers, assembling products, performing construction tasks, cleaning hotel rooms, etc.

Activities that merely prepare for, or wrap up after, the principal work—like commuting, casual waiting, or incidental gear handling—are generally not compensable unless they are indispensable parts of the job itself.

C. “Integral and Indispensable” in Plain Terms

Ask three questions:

1. Intrinsic? Is this activity truly part of what we would ordinarily describe as the job? (e.g., sharpening a butcher’s knife vs. eating breakfast)
2. Indispensable? Can the job be done safely and properly if this activity is skipped? (e.g., donning toxic‑chemical protection vs. optional extra equipment that just makes work easier)
3. Not just required? Is the employer’s say‑so alone insufficient to transform the activity into work time? (The Supreme Court says: being required is not enough.)

Only when the answer to (1) and (2) is yes does time become compensable under the “integral and indispensable” standard.

D. Waiting Time: “Engaged to Wait” vs. “Waiting to Be Engaged”

Two simple characterizations:

• Engaged to wait (paid): A firefighter between calls, required to remain on the employer’s premises, who cannot use the time for personal errands because a call can come at any moment. Waiting is part of the job itself.
• Waiting to be engaged (unpaid): A day laborer sitting in a coffee shop hoping to be called for a job, free to come and go, read, sleep, or run errands. They are available but not yet working.

Pacesetter’s workers looked more like the latter while at the hall awaiting assignments or transport.

E. Rule 23(b)(3) Predominance

Predominance asks:

“Will answering the common questions resolve the core of each class member’s claim, or will we still have to litigate many individualized, person‑by‑person disputes?”

A class passes predominance when:

• Liability turns largely on standardized conduct (e.g., a uniform deceptive statement to all customers, a single illegal fee charged identically to everyone); and
• Individual issues (e.g., damages calculations) do not overwhelm that common core.

It fails when:

• Each person’s claim depends on distinct facts (e.g., individualized contract terms, variable reasons for specific charges); and
• Courts would effectively need to conduct many mini‑trials to resolve liability per claimant.

In Villarino, the variability of transportation charges and credits, and the need to distinguish personal bus passes from work‑related transportation, pushed the case into the latter category.

V. Likely Impact and Significance

A. For Temporary Staffing and Day‑Labor Firms

The decision gives clear guidance to labor pools and staffing agencies operating in the Eleventh Circuit (and likely persuasive elsewhere):

• Optional transportation programs are permissible fee‑for‑service arrangements when:
  • Participation is genuinely voluntary;
  • Workers retain meaningful alternative commuting options;
  • Customers do not demand employer‑provided transport as a condition of staffing;
  • The employer does not rely on the service’s value to meet minimum wage.
• Central labor halls do not convert commuting into worktime when the understood arrangement is that pay begins at the customer’s site and workers freely choose when to appear at the hall.
• Generic tools and waiting at halls will typically be treated as non‑compensable pre‑work activities absent highly specific, hazard‑related or job‑intrinsic circumstances.

B. For Workers and Plaintiffs’ Counsel

The opinion signals that:

• FLSA claims based on transportation deductions must show that the service is a core business expense primarily benefiting the employer (e.g., legally mandated or functionally necessary for the business model) rather than an optional commuting aid.
• Claims for travel, tool, or waiting time must carefully tie the activity to the “intrinsic elements” of the specific job. Simply asserting necessity in a practical sense (“you have to get there to work”) will not suffice.
• Class claims attacking varied, transaction‑specific payroll deductions face substantial predominance hurdles unless the challenged practice is uniform and can be proved or disproved on a class‑wide basis.

C. Doctrinal Clarification Post‑Loper Bright

By explicitly citing Loper Bright Enterprises v. Raimondo and Skidmore, the Eleventh Circuit implicitly models post‑Chevron judicial review:

• DOL’s FOH and regulations are considered, but only to the extent they are persuasive and consistent with the statute;
• Courts reaffirm that interpretive flexibility is bounded by the statutory text and Supreme Court precedent (Busk, Alvarez, etc.).

This case thus illustrates how lower courts may continue to rely on agency guidance in a more explicitly Skidmore‑like way.

D. Florida Labor Pool Act Litigation

On the state‑law side, the decision signals that:

• Claims under the Florida Labor Pool Act can be fact‑intensive when charges blend work‑related transport and personal purchases, especially where credits and discounts are involved.
• Class certification will be difficult where each putative class member’s recovery depends on parsing individualized transactions rather than applying a single rule to a uniform charge.

VI. Conclusion

The Eleventh Circuit’s opinion in Villarino v. Pacesetter Personnel Service, Inc. delivers a structured, fact‑sensitive application of FLSA and Portal‑to‑Portal principles to the modern day‑labor staffing context.

The key holdings are:

• Optional, employer‑facilitated transportation that workers may accept or reject, and which is not required by customers or law, can be treated as an employee‑benefit facility whose reasonable cost may be deducted from wages without violating minimum wage protections.
• Travel between a labor hall and dispersed jobsites, generic tool pickup and return, and waiting at a labor hall or for transportation are non‑compensable preliminary/postliminary activities where they are not intrinsic elements of the job’s core productive duties and are not indispensable to safe, lawful performance.
• In wage‑and‑hour class actions under the Florida Labor Pool Act, individualized questions about the nature, purpose, and offsetting credits of transportation charges can defeat Rule 23(b)(3) predominance, especially when charges include a mixture of work‑related and personal transactions.

In broader perspective, the decision reinforces the Supreme Court’s post‑Portal‑to‑Portal jurisprudence that narrows compensable pre‑ and post‑shift time to truly essential and job‑intrinsic activities, and it underscores that FLSA minimum wage protections, while robust, do not invalidate every employer charge associated with getting to work or preparing for it. For practitioners on both sides of wage‑and‑hour disputes, Villarino will be a central Eleventh Circuit reference point in evaluating transportation deductions, tool and waiting‑time claims, and the viability of class treatment in cases involving complex payroll practices.