Baltimore Sun, "Donning safety gear, walking to work site part of shift, court says"

          The Supreme Court ruled yesterday that companies must pay plant workers for the time it takes to change into protective clothing and safety gear and walk to their workstations in a case some experts said may have implications across several occupations.
          In similar cases in Maryland, Salisbury-based poultry producer Perdue Farms Inc. settled a class action lawsuit in 2002 for $10 million. Also that year, the company settled for $10 million a lawsuit year involving the Department of Labor.
          In both cases it was argued that hourly chicken processing workers should have been paid for the time it took them to don and take off protective gear for work.
          A San Francisco attorney who was on the team of lawyers representing workers in the class action case against Perdue, said yesterday's ruling "vindicates the argument we were making in that case, that donning and doffing of specialized protective gear is an integral ... part of performing the activity of working on a chicken processing line."