a) if you talk with local dairy farmers who have Harvestore storage structures, you will find that paying for travel time has been a long time practice.......  and it don't stop at $35/hour.....

b) if your friend's company quit paying for travel time, I have to wonder if the employees were jerking around the company on their travel.  I have to wonder if companies are doing this, because employees are taking advantage of it.

c) become self-employed and you find out that you don't get paid for travel time - only time spent on the actual job.  It's kinda like road time to a farmer - traveling to and from a field/farm don't make you money.  Only time you make money is when you are actually in the field. At some point, a person has to decide how far he can afford to travel.

But I would agree.... charging the customer for travel time, but not paying the employee for travel time.... that just doesn't not seem right.

edit:

I think the real issue here is paying over-time.  If travel time is starting to get up-wards of 1.5-2 hours one-way, that trip could be 3-4 hours of labor before any real work gets done;  staying to get in an 8-hour work-day results in overtime.  

The IRS has specific rules regarding how a person/ business can use/ deduct mileage for business use.  I would think that might set a precident for when a person is "on the clock" and when he is "off the clock".  If your friend thinks what this company is doing is wrong, he might want to contact the Dept of Labor and just run that question by them..... whether this business is acting within appropriate rules and guidelines.