Meal Break Law
“An employer shall not employ an employee for a work period of more than five hours per day without providing the employee with a meal period of not less than 30 minutes, except that if the total work period per day of the employee is no more than six hours, the meal period may be waived by mutual consent of both the employer and employee..."STATUTE
“An employer shall not employ an employee for a work period of more than five hours per day without providing the employee with a meal period of not less than 30 minutes, except that if the total work period per day of the employee is no more than six hours, the meal period may be waived by mutual consent of both the employer and employee. An employer shall not employ an employee for a work period of more than 10 hours per day without providing the employee with a second meal period of not less than 30 minutes, except that if the total hours worked is no more than 12 hours, the second meal period may be waived by mutual consent of the employer and the employee only if the first meal period was not waived.”
APPLICATION
California employees who work over 5 hours in a day are entitled to a meal break of at least 30 minutes that must start before the end of the fifth hour of their shift. If an employee works over 10 hours in a workday, he or she is entitled to a second meal break of at least 30 minutes that must start before the end of the tenth hour.
Meal breaks must be completely off duty. “The employer satisfies this obligation if it relieves its employees of all duty, relinquishes control over their activities and permits them a reasonable opportunity to take an uninterrupted 30-minute break, and does not impede or discourage them from doing so.” Brinker Rest. Corp. v. Superior Court, 53 Cal. 4th 1004, 1040 (2012).
EXCEPTIONS
an employee who works less than 6 hours in a day can agree to waive his or her meal break. Moreover, sometimes, an employee can agree to an “on-duty” meal break where he or she continues to work during the meal break but is paid for the time. Such an “agreement” agreement must be in writing and inform the employee of the right to revoke it at any time, should they choose. The employee can agree to waive the second meal break, but only if the employee does not work more than 12 hours and did not waive his or her first meal break.
PENALTIES
If an employer unlawfully denies a meal break, the employee is entitled to one extra hour of pay at their regular hourly rate for each workday the violation occurs. This additional pay is referred to as “premium pay.” The penalty is capped at two hours of premium pay per day (one for all rest break violations and one for all meal break violations).