Many California employers know that anytime an employee works a 8 hour shift, that must include an UNPAID meal break and a two 10 minute PAID rest breaks. What about when an employee doesn’t work 8 hours and doesn’t want to take a meal break? Under California law, there is an option to waive that break.
1. Meal break timing obligations.
An employer may 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 thirty minutes. A second meal period of not less than thirty minutes is required if an employee works more than ten hours per day. Labor Code Section 512.
2. Employer’s duty to authorize meal breaks.
As long as employers effectively allow an employee to take a full 30-minute meal break, the employee can voluntarily choose not to take the break, and the employer would not owe the employee the additional hour of pay in the form of premium pay for a violation.
While employees may voluntarily work through meal breaks, if the employer knows or should have known that the employee working during this time, the employer must ensure that the employee is paid for the time working.
3. Employees may waive meal breaks for shifts less than 6 hours or shifts less than 12 hours.
If the total work period per day for an employee is no more than six hours, the meal period may be waived by mutual consent of both the employer and employee. Likewise, if the 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 employee only if the first meal period was not waived. Labor Code Section 512.
4. Meal break waivers for shifts less than six hours and less than 12 hours are not required to be in writing, but should be.
Labor Code section 512 does not require an employee’s waiver of their meal breaks for shifts less than six hours or shifts less than 12 hours to be in writing. However, in order to avoid any potential disputes and to be able to defend against any potential claims by disgruntled employees, it is always a good practice to have the voluntary waivers documented and signed by employees.
Sanjay Sabarwal's Blog 