California is very picky about ensuring non-exempt (hourly) employees get their legally mandated rest and meal breaks. The question hasn’t been IF you should be enforcing the rest and meal break rules; the question has been what happens if you don’t. UPS has helped provide the answer.
In case you’ve forgotten, California law mandates at least a 10-minute rest break in the middle of each 4-hour work period for non-exempt (hourly) employees. That usually means a rest break mid-morning and again mid-afternoon. You can’t combine it with the lunch period. You can’t come in late or leave early as count it as a rest period.
The law also mandates at least a 30-minute meal period for non-exempt employees working more than 6 hours that day. If the employee will absolutely be off work within 6 hours, you can forego the meal period. But you better be sure they are gone by hour 6! If they are eligible for the meal period, it must begin within the first 5 hours of their workday.
The tricky part is making sure the employee takes the minimum time mandated for each break. No picking up the phone, no other employee asking them a work question, NO work can be conducted during that rest or meal break or you start the clock all over again until they get their 10 or 30 minute uninterrupted break.
And if they don’t get both 10-minute rest breaks and 30-minute meal break? You owe them one hour of ”penalty pay” for each missed or interrupted break, up to two hours of penalty pay per day. Plus, the missed or interrupted meal period could also make the employee eligible for overtime because you now have to count that as worked time.
Employer attorneys have been saying you were only required to pay one hour of penalty pay each day, regardless of the number of missed breaks. However, again thanks to UPS, a court case has resulted in a decision that the maximum is two hours each day if two or more breaks are missed.
We’re still waiting for the CA Supreme Court to let us know if we have to “enforce” the breaks or merely “inform” employees that breaks are available. The decision is expected (finally) in April so we’ll cross our fingers until then.
