3 Meal Breaks Employees Can Take
All employers in California must let their employees take meal breaks. If they don’t, they can get sued. Even if there is so much work that needs to be done, they’re still human beings and they need to eat. Of course, the meal breaks isn’t limited to just eating. Employees can also do other things aside from eating during the meal breaks.
Some things they can do include looking at their social media accounts and replying to their text messages. Of course, during office hours, they may be barred from looking at their mobile phones so this is also a time for them to catch up what they’ve missed. Hence, employees should be familiar with the meal breaks they have and here they are:
First Break
During the first five hours of an employee’s shift, the person is required to take an uninterrupted 30-minute break. Whenever a colleague needs the individual for work-related matters, the person can simply say she’s on break and the colleague will understand.
However, if the shift of the employee is only for six hours or less, the break may be waived off. Of course, it should be agreed on by both the employee and the employer. After all, the employee will be the one who will get hungry during the 6-hour period.
Second Break
For employees who work more than 10 hours, they must take a second 30-minute break. It must be consumed no later than the employee’s 10th hour at duty. The employee does have the option of waiving off the second break as long as she doesn’t work more than 12 hours.
The individual may want to go home earlier or she may think the second break isn’t necessary. If the employee and employer both agree to it, the second break may be waived. It may be possible the employee lives nearby, so she prefers to just go home earlier and rest.
On-Duty Meal Breaks
In very rare cases, employees can be allowed to take on-duty breaks. This would highly depend on the nature of work of the employee. For example, if the employee is always at the field, there’s no question an on-duty break is needed. Of course, it must still be agreed on by both the employee and employer.
No matter how addicted to work employees are, these breaks are mandatory. Besides, they’ll get stressed if they work for 8 hours straight. Hence, these meal breaks are for the good of the employees.
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