Employee breaks required

Miriam George

We are a manufacturing firm in Oklahoma. We are setting up "shop" temporarily in California to handle re-work of a product being recalled out there. Can anyone tell me if California law requires an employer to give breaks during the day and for how long?

Gillian

Assuming that you are setting up a traditional shift, ten minutes per each half shift, as close as possible to the middle of the half shift. The kicker is the penalty - if you fail to do this the employee is entitled to one hour straight time pay per day. We have a column on the time sheet. It says "check in this column if you didn't take your breaks and lunch". A check mark triggers payroll to add one hour to their pay.

Don D

Do you mean to tell me that an employee triggers the additional payment of wages on his own time card? From what you say, if the employee did not take his break or lunch that's what happens. Good God, what has happened to sensibility?

Gillian

Exactly, if they forget to check it, they don't get it. Incidentally, many of us do it this way and the method was highly recommended by the Ca. labor attorney community. Supervisors have to sign the time card.

Don D

Your mention of the fact that skipping the break will result in payment of a whole hour's wage, indicates that the whole thing is punitive toward the employer community. It certainly cannot be construed as an employer-friendly rule. Wonder if any others among the 50 states have a similar rule? California is arguably the country's largest user of seasonal farm workers...Does this also apply to field workers or those not in proximity of a time clock or sheet of paper? I often forget that workers are entirely trustworthy and its us employers who cannot be trusted to treat people fairly. x:-)

Gillian

[font size="1" color="#FF0000"]LAST EDITED ON 09-05-02 AT 02:50PM (CST)[/font][p]You want complexity - we have 17 different wage orders covering 17 different industries, including one for the agricultural industry, but I don't know if the workers who pick your lettuce get the extra bucks if they don't get a break. I can't find anything to say they don't but I would want to see the wage order first, and I don't have one.

As far as the process of time keeping goes, the employee designation is the best way to go. We get a half dozen check marks a week out of around 130 non-exempt employees. That means 124 employees, by failing to check they didn't, signed that they did take their break and there is zero chance for them to win a wage claim over non-payment of wages. Now there is the penalty, one days pay for each day that the employer is late to a maximum of 30 days plus interest.

We do have a reputation for being pro - employee in California but I don't have a problem with that and the reverse, being anti-employer doesn't seem to hurt. If we were a country, in Southern California where I live, we would have the fifth largest economy in the world.

Rockie

Gillian: What's to keep an employee from deliberately not taking their breaks and/or lunches to get paid extra for it? Is this just addressed strictly through disciplinary procedures? Also, is there an electronic time clock in order to see if they actually punched in and out or do you just take their word for it?

cebudragonlady

In our Calif plant, the workers frquently work part of their lunch break - even though we tell them that a 30-minute break is mandatory. While on travel to install our product (in Calif and out-of-state ), the workers frequently work their lunch hours - even though we tell them to take lunch. We pay them for the time that they actually do work, as approved by a supervisor. Seems that the workers want that extra little bit of overtime every week.This practice existed before I got here, and getting the workers to take 30-minute
lunches is like whistling into the wind.

Don D

"...getting the workers to take 30-minute lunches is like whistling into the wind."


It seems to me "It's also like screwing the employer's overtime budget into the ground." Where I come from, telling employees to observe a specified rest break and lunch break, and having that directive ignored, is referred to and treated as insubordination, not overtime.

Rockie

Yeah Don, I agree.

Yesterday the payroll person came to me and said she has an employee dispute an electronically punched time record that can only be accessed by her badge. She was trying to say that she was working when the clock said she had punched in and out.

I told her to have the supervisor ask the employee who had her badge and was punching her in and out without her knowledge. She had a miraculous recovery of her senses and said that she "forgot" and that she had indeed not worked during this time period.

I wish these people would use the energy they expend in trying to get away with stuff and put it into doing their jobs!!!!

moneyman

I agree with Don that this should be a disciplinary issue. We have had similar problems but it was the reverse, employees starting early but NOT putting the time down on the timesheet. We have had a hard time getting the employees to understand that we must pay them for all time worked so that we DO NOT want them to check in a begin working early. They feel that they are being good employees by getting a jump on the day and not expecting the employer to pay for it (because it was their choice to come in). Mostly we have encountered this with the more "mature" employee and not the younger crowd. Just like with overtime, we have a hard time explaining that they can not choose NOT to get paid overtime when they work more than 40 hours, even if they want to work extra this week to take off an hour next week.

It seems a little ridiculous, but we have to enforce disciplinary procedures for violating these rules. Any supervisor that has an employee beginning the day early must first ensure that the time is recorded, then give a verbal warning that they are not following the rules and working their scheduled shift. The same goes with lunch breaks, we have many employees who would like to work right through lunch and we end up sending them home early just so they do not get more than an 8-hour day. First, it throws the schedule off and second other employees find it unfair that some people leave early. Enforcing disciplinary action has solved most of that, the only case that seems to continue is the HR Manager and she seem to "save" up her lunches and leaves early on Friday. Now, how is that an example for the employees? But, since we have a CEO who seems to have his head in the clouds, well, we just live with it, but it does affect employee morale.

Gillian

We don't take the employees word for it, because a supervisor signature is required. If both sign that they didn't take a break we would assume that to be the case. The supervisors are the monitors, and just in case they slip, a check mark triggers a call to the supervisor from our payroll person (who does have the enforcement mentality) asking whether or not the supervisor noticed the absense of a break and to remind them that the $ are not in their budget.

Don D

Gillian; I will close for the day by saying that over here in the boonies where I'm located, rather than thinking we have an 'enforcement mentality', the mindset seems to be that the chief expectation of the H.R. staff is 'To legally act in the best interest of the employer'. I never see that as having an 'enforcement mentality' and realize I am frequently called on to enforce a variety of things. If I can legally save the company a dollar in overtime, that's my objective. I'm not trusting enough to assume the labor pool will manage that for me. I can't imagine life in a place where "there are no problem employees" and its a bad thing to have a drive to enforce or where I'm told things will always go right if you leave them unattended. Thank you for reminding me on a daily basis that, indeed, the state of California is another country, notwithstanding its financial wealth. Tomorrow we will expect you to go over your list of things in the negative column. x:-)

Gillian

[font size="1" color="#FF0000"]LAST EDITED ON 09-08-02 AT 03:33PM (CST)[/font][p]Maybe my communication wasn't clear. I didn't say there weren't any problems, just that words "problem employee" and "employee with a problem" are different and sometimes creates a different approach to dealing with the problem. Pertaining to problems at my workplace, the 80-20 rule works here as well - 80% of the employees are doing what they are supposed to do and 20% don't, sometimes occasionally and sometimes always. I just believe that the emphasis should be on the 80%, because that is where the success of an organization comes from, not from spending an inordinate amount of time worrying what the 20% are up to. The worst of the 20% eventually leave because they don't fit in and some of the others turn around with a bit of guidance. Then we like everyone else hire more, in the same 80-20 percentage and life goes on. Of course we have negatives.

The topic which kicked all this off, of course, was the post about break times in our fair state. I don't think that legislation to force employers to may for extra work, which is what happens when employees can't take breaks, is anti-employer. I don't like the penalty, but that is what our legislature handed us.

ritaanz

Gillian, when are you going to Mexico? Soon?

Statements such as "enforcement mentality, worst of the 20% eventually leave, and there are no problem employees only employees with problems" are ones that raise the shackles of HR people. The job is tough enough keeping the company on the straight and narrow, dealing with dozens of different personalities and living up to our responsibilities without having to be told that WE are the problem.

What in the world does "the context was the implication of the words" mean anyhow?

Gillian

to Ritaanz and those that feel the same way - chastisement accepted. I will ease up on the philosophy. I even came in on Sunday to edit my earlier message because I got to thinking that it went a bit overboard.

sonny

Anyone who comes into work on a Sunday to edit a message, still gets some credit in my book. A bit strong? Perhaps. .but some of the philosophical discussion that goes on, is what makes this place great and always provides food for thought. Sometimes, frankly, depending on the culture and management philosphy of the company HR IS part of the problem as much as some of us try to change that.

I, for one, am not anxious to send Gillian off to Mexico just yet. .:)

hrqueen

Gillian,

I think you and I share the same management philosophy, and I agree with you 100%. th-up.