Location: California
So you work an 8 hour shift 9:15–5:30. Your employer owes you one half hour lunch break since it’s over 6 hours.
It gets busiest in the afternoon around lunchtime. Can your employer require you to take your break from 9:30–10?
Technically they’ve given you one lunch break, but it’s at the beginning of your shift, and would mean working 7.5 hours with no lunch break afterwards.
Seems sketch. Would love clarification
Comments
It appears that they must provide your meal break no later than 6 hours after your shift starts, but it doesn’t appear there’s a limit as to how early into the shift it can start. See question 3 here:
https://www.dir.ca.gov/dlse/FAQ_MealPeriods.htm
They just have to give you it within the first 5 hours. There’s no requirement or timeline on when within those 5 hours.
Yeah it’s legal. Some jobs where you can’t leave posts empty for even a second (security comes to mind) can have some pretty messed up break schedules.
When I was opening shift at a restaurant, I was told to get my breaks done before service, so it cut 40 minutes out of prep time while also having me work 6+ hours with no ‘real’ break. Don’t know if it was legal but digging into prep is what burned me.
FWIW CA also mandates that you are owed an additional paid 10 minute break per every 4 hours worked (two per 8H).
If you are not completely relieved of duty for those 10 minutes, it is a violation.
It is legal. It actually wasn’t when the law was first introduced. It was after your 2nd hour and before your 5th hour originally.
But the restaurant industry specifically lobbied and one large restaurant company filed suite and ultimately the 2nd hour requirement was removed in general.
I am a restaurant manager and yeah breaking people in the middle of service is basically impossible with out it turning into a confusing sh it show in some way. Break and provided meal after setup and before service starts has always been the long standing norm and I don’t think most employees have an issue with it. But I can see how that totally sucks for other industries.