![]() Under the 2010 health care reform law, the FLSA now requires employers to provide nursing mothers with reasonable break times, usually about 30 minutes, to express breast milk, or if children are allowed in the office, to nurse their infants, during the first year after the baby’s birth. Only one type of break is required under the law. Additionally, the FLSA states that if an employee is required to remain on the premises during their lunch break, it must be counted as work time. For a meal break to be non-compensable time, the employer must completely relieve the employee of their duties during break time. Meal periods (typically lasting at least 30 minutes) serve a different purpose than coffee or snack breaks, are not work time, and are not compensable. Employers should consistently enforce these rules. The employer must also include that time in the sum of hours worked during the workweek for determining if the employee worked overtime.Īn employer does not need to count unauthorized extensions of authorized work breaks as hours worked when the employer has expressly and unambiguously communicated to the employee that the authorized break may only last for a specific length of time, that any extension of the break is contrary to the employer’s rules, and the employer will punish an unauthorized extension. However, when employers offer short breaks (usually lasting about 5 to 20 minutes), federal law considers those breaks compensable work hours to be fully paid. The FLSA does not require meal or coffee breaks. ![]() The Fair Labor Standards Act (“FLSA”) is a federal law that establishes minimum wage and overtime pay, employer recordkeeping, and child labor standards. Fair Labor Standards Act – What It Does and Does Not Do ![]() If a workplace is unionized, the collective bargaining agreement union may also dictate meal break rules. Some employers institute break policies, and some provide meal breaks in their employment contracts. Employers may also provide lunch breaks to attract and retain employees. ![]() However, many employers choose to provide lunch breaks to their employees as a benefit or to increase employee productivity and morale. You have leverage as a group that you may not have as an individual.In Texas, neither state nor federal law entitles employees to a lunch or rest break. If there are a number of people who work for your employer who are not getting lunch breaks and we are able to approach your employer as a organized group, it is often easier to convince employers that it is their best interest to fix the situation rather than risk the repercussions of many of his employees being upset. To make it easier, keep in mind that there is strength in numbers. Often times it is intimidating to approach an employer who you rely on for a pay check to give you something that seems as trivial as a lunch break, but it is your right and his obligation to give it to you. You should also know that the law protects you if your employer decides to retaliate against you by firing you or otherwise discriminating against you after you have alerted your employer to your desire to have a lunch break and be reimbursed for lunch breaks you have not been given. If you work 10 hours in a day, you are entitled to another 30 minute lunch break. ![]() If you work more than five hours per day, you are entitled to a lunch break (or meal period or rest period) of at least 30 minutes. I would like to get a lunch break during the day, but my employer refuses to give one to me despite the fact that I work 10 hours a day without any break. ![]()
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