New "meal break" regulations
Yesterday, the California Labor Commissioner amended its recently proposed regulations about the state meal break rules. link
The amendments nicely clarify the basic law (employers must permit a 30-minute meal break for any shift over five hours, and two meal breaks for shifts over ten hours) and remove some potentially confusing text about getting employees to sign an acknowledgment, letting employees pick their meal break starting time, etc.
Unfortunately, I see a problem in proposed ยง13700(a)(4), which gives a conflicting definition of "work period." The first sentence implies a "work period" does not include meal breaks (by saying it only includes time employees are subject to an employer's control). The second sentence implies a "work period" does include meal breaks (by saying the work period only ends at the end of the workday). I think the second sentence is an incorrect statement and needs to be fixed.
The Labor Commissioner is taking comments on the amendments to the proposed regulation, so I faxed them a letter pointing out the problem and suggesting new text to substitute.
The amendments nicely clarify the basic law (employers must permit a 30-minute meal break for any shift over five hours, and two meal breaks for shifts over ten hours) and remove some potentially confusing text about getting employees to sign an acknowledgment, letting employees pick their meal break starting time, etc.
Unfortunately, I see a problem in proposed ยง13700(a)(4), which gives a conflicting definition of "work period." The first sentence implies a "work period" does not include meal breaks (by saying it only includes time employees are subject to an employer's control). The second sentence implies a "work period" does include meal breaks (by saying the work period only ends at the end of the workday). I think the second sentence is an incorrect statement and needs to be fixed.
The Labor Commissioner is taking comments on the amendments to the proposed regulation, so I faxed them a letter pointing out the problem and suggesting new text to substitute.
This entry was posted
on Thursday, April 07, 2005 at 11:23 AM.
