Meal and Rest Breaks
In California, employees are entitled to 30-minute uninterrupted meal period every five hours (for shifts six hours or longer) and a 10-minute uninterrupted rest period every four hours (or greater fraction thereof). However, employees are often forced to work through their lunches and breaks. Many employees don’t know that their entitled to an extra hour worth of pay if they are forced to work through their breaks.
There are several reasons why employees are forced to work through their breaks. Working through breaks can lead to overworking, stress, anxiety, and burnout. It’s essential that employees are given an opportunity to take a break. Also, breaks can be used to handle important business that you can’t do on the clock. If you think you’ve experienced a meal and/or rest break violation, please give us a call.
Below, are some examples of common issues employees face when trying to get timely uninterrupted meal and rest breaks:
- Supervisors or coworkers talking to you about work-related things
- Having deadlines that conflict with lunch periods
- Lack of coverage
- Having to wait in line to clock back in for lunch
- Supervisors asking you to come back to work
- Automatic deduction of your lunch periods
- Never given an opportunity to take a second 30 minute meal period if working 10 hours or more
