Breaks

Kennedy

[font size="1" color="#FF0000"]LAST EDITED ON 10-09-03 AT 03:57PM (CST)[/font][p]Could someone please tell me if it is required in Texas to give employee breaks? We are having an issue with a couple of employees that say we are not giving them the breaks that are required by law when we should be. They seem to think that we are required to give them breaks after so many hours have been worked. I have looked and cannot find any information on rest breaks and lunch breaks in the State of Texas.

mwild31

Go here: [url]http://www.state.tx.us/category.jsp?language=eng&categoryId=4.4[/url]

Don D

I went there MW, and didn't see anything on breaks. Did I overlook something?

mwild31

[font size="1" color="#FF0000"]LAST EDITED ON 10-09-03 AT 07:59PM (CST)[/font][p]Nope, you didn't - I didn't see anything there as well - I included the link because it had the phone number to the local TX offices & they can find the answer out in short order rather than waiting for responses.

Update: Since responding - I researched it further & yahoo! I have an additional link:

[url]http://www.dol.gov/esa/programs/whd/state/rest.htm[/url]

Kennedy

Thanks for the link and for the help!!

Pork

Kennedy: Your state is not listed; therefore, you must abide by the Federal Laws, reference Regulation Part 785 Hours Worked Under the Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938, As Amended. You can get your own personal copy for free by calling your federal wage and hour folks. They are very helpful. Article 785.14 to 785.22 will provide you with all the necessary words to make you into a hero and a professional HR, that you will become overtime! Page 4 Waiting Time is where uou want to start reading and absorbing the prose as written so that anytime anyone ask you, you will have it verbatum on your tongue!!!

ALSO MARK YOUR BOOKLET WITH HI-LITE AND TABS BECAUSE THIS QUESTION WILL HIT YOU MANY MORE TIMES IN YOUR YOUNG HR CAREER AS A PROFESSIONAL HR

PORK!

santire

Texas, like most states as well as the FLSA, does not require that employers give employees breaks for meals or any other purpose. However, under some circumstances involving hazardous work OSHA has such requriements.

Pork

SANTIRE: MAY I SUGGEST YOU GET YOUR OWN PERSONAL COPY OF THE FLSA, FOR YOU ARE ABSOLUTELY QUOTING FROM MIS-INFORMATION! Section 789.19 - MEAL. "Bona fide meal periods are not worktime............ The employee must be completely relieved from duty for the purposes of eating a regular meals. Ordinarily 30 minutes or more is long enough for a bona fide meal period.........". Every one must have a bona fide meal break in each 6 hour period of time. If one sits at one's desk and eats a meal but does "no work" is relieved and is not paid for the 30 minutes or more. However, a receptionist who does this and greets one customer or answers one phone call is not completely relieved and the time spent at rest/meal starts over, even if the event occurs at 29 minutes of the rest/meal break. The same would be true of a machine operator in a plant. He must be relieved for a rest/meal break for at least 30 minutes.

"The above has not been amended since 1938. Rest periods of short duration, running from 5 minutes to about 20 minutes, are common in industry. They promote the efficiency of the employee and are customarily paid for as working time. They must be counted as hours worked. Compensatable time of rest periods may not be offset against other working time such as compensable waiting time or on-call time." This is written to prevent employers from taking back "break periods" at the end of the day or shift.

While the regulations do not directly say you will give rest breaks, it does tell you that we should give 5 to 20 minute rest breaks, and no less than a 30 minute meal break, for which we do not have to pay. If your company can justify an action not to give a meal break in a 6 hour period of time, then, you might be right. In our company there are a few task done daily and others done every week where we do not allow the ee to stop and take a 15 minute break or a 30 minute meal break in a 6 hour period of time. The activity is so critical to the whole of the company that ones started one does not stop until the action has been completed. After which thou, the ee is allowed to take a 30 to 1 hour lunch break. We pay for the straight 6 hour period, and we do not pay for the meal period, because the ee is completely relieved of any work while eating or sleeping, his/her call. We can not make anyone eat, but we can make them rest.

PORK

Sunny

Pork: I hesitate to disagree with one so knowledgeable but I don't think 30-minute lunch breaks are mandated. The law does say that you must pay for breaks of less than 30 minutes duration. Our union contract specifies that our employees get three 10-minute breaks during an 8-hour workday. Another 10 minutes is granted for each 2-hours worked over 8 hours. This means they are paid for every minute they are in the plant - they take short breaks and leave after 8-hours. The DOL was in here not too long ago and took no exception to this policy. They would only have objected if we had tried not to pay the employees for the break times.

Just my thoughts.
Sunny

Pork

SUNNY: MAYBE YOU SHOULD ALSO GET YOUR PERSONAL COPY OF THE RULES AND REGULATIONS, SO NICELY PROVIDED BY OUR FED WAGE AND HOUR FOLKS. HOWEVER, MAYBE YOUR UNION HAS GOT THE WAGE AND HOUR FOLKS UNDER THEIR THUMBS. My words are taken from pages 4-5 & 6 of Regulations Part 785; it is pretty simple to me. I have also got the experience of a wage and hour audit done on this very question caused by an ee who called and complained and they swooped down upon our shoulders and buried us deep in our own manure. We thought we were wise and could listen to just about any manager who wanted the words to read like they wanted them to read. $28,000.00 later we dug our behinds out and changed our thinking about breaks and lunches. If someone did not want to go to lunch we said ok, but we are not going to pay; the complaining person was one of 25 accounting clerks that brought her lunch in and would continue to work while everyone else went to lunch. She answered no calls but she used her adding machine to check her work while eating her lunch. Oh, did we pay and dearly. She collected for her self several years of 1 hour lunch breaks, that we failed to pay and the others who never complained, if they had proof of time not paid, they collected also.

OF COURSE, THIS IS ONLY THE FORUM AND YOU CAN DO AS YOU WANT TO DO, my words are only for your consumption and they may only cause you to throw-up.

EAT MORE PORK INSTEAD OF manager's orders & words, and you'll feel better at the end of the day!

PORK

PS. THE DOL IS A SEPERATE OFFICE TO THE WAGE AND HOUR FOLKS, THE AUDITORS. I am surprised that you have no 30 minute or longer lunch break, but then you may have convenienced someone there was a critical business reason to operate as you do without a lunch meal and your union bought it, therefore the collective bargaining contract establishes your operating rules over the common folks like us.

Sunny

Pork - Yes - we would be in trouble if we allowed someone to work through a lunch break and didn't pay them. In fact, that is what caused our audit. An office employee claimed we owed her overtime because she worked through lunch (an unasked for surprise to us.) Even if the work is unauthorized, the DOL holds that it is the company's responsibility to include the time in paid hours worked. You MUST pay for the time if the employee is not completely relieved from all work. That is where you got into trouble - by not paying. The three 10-minute breaks that replace a 30 minute unpaid lunch are PAID and are at the request of the union, not management - they did not want to remain in the plant (unpaid) for the extra time.

But I thank you for your advice - I will reread the regulations.

Sunny

hrdir03nafcu

Pork: I've downloaded the following answers to FAQs from the DOL website "e--laws"-- FLSA does NOT require that workers, in general, be given breaks or meal periods. It does require that breaks completely relieve the EE of work duties, and that they be of certain minimum duration in order to qualify as UNPAID TIME. see below....
*************************************
From DOL website:

When must breaks and meal periods be given?
The Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) does not require breaks or meal periods be given to workers. Some states may have requirements for breaks or meal periods. If you work in a state which does not require breaks or meal periods, these benefits are a matter of agreement between the employer and the employee (or the employee's representative).
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[url]www.dol.gov/elaws[/url]
[url]www.dol.gov[/url]



9 CFR 785.18 - Rest.
• Section Number: 785.18
• Section Name: Rest.

Rest periods of short duration, running from 5 minutes to about 20
minutes, are common in industry. They promote the efficiency of the
employee and are customarily paid for as working time. They must be
counted as hours worked. Compensable time of rest periods may not be
offset against other working time such as compensable waiting time or
on-call time. (Mitchell v. Greinetz, 235 F. 2d 621, 13 W.H. Cases 3
(C.A. 10, 1956); Ballard v. Consolidated Steel Corp., Ltd., 61 F. Supp.
996 (S.D. Cal. 1945))



29 CFR 785.19 - Meal.
• Section Number: 785.19
• Section Name: Meal.

(a) Bona fide meal periods. Bona fide meal periods are not worktime.
Bona
fide meal periods do not include coffee breaks or time for snacks. These
are rest periods. The employee must be completely relieved from duty for
the purposes of eating regular meals. Ordinarily 30 minutes or more is
long enough for a bona fide meal period. A shorter period may be long
enough under special conditions. The employee is not relieved if he is
required to perform any duties, whether active or inactive, while
eating. For example, an office employee who is required to eat at his
desk or a factory worker who is required to be at his machine is working
while eating. (Culkin v. Glenn L. Martin, Nebraska Co., 97 F. Supp. 661
(D. Neb. 1951), aff'd 197 F. 2d 981 (C.A. 8, 1952), cert. denied 344
U.S. 888 (1952); Thompson v. Stock & Sons, Inc., 93 F. Supp. 213 (E.D.
Mich 1950), aff'd 194 F. 2d 493 (C.A. 6, 1952); Biggs v. Joshua Hendy
Corp., 183 F. 2d 515 (C. A. 9, 1950), 187 F. 2d 447 (C.A. 9, 1951);
Walling v. Dunbar Transfer & Storage Co., 3 W.H. Cases 284; 7 Labor
Cases para. 61.565 (W.D. Tenn. 1943); Lofton v. Seneca Coal and Coke
Co., 2 W.H. Cases 669; 6 Labor Cases para. 61,271 (N.D. Okla. 1942);
aff'd 136 F. 2d 359 (C.A. 10, 1943); cert. denied 320 U.S. 772 (1943);
Mitchell v. Tampa Cigar Co., 36 Labor Cases para. 65, 198, 14 W.H. Cases
38 (S.D. Fla. 1959); Douglass v. Hurwitz Co., 145 F. Supp. 29, 13 W.H.
Cases (E.D. Pa. 1956))
(b) Where no permission to leave premises. It is not necessary that
an employee be permitted to leave the premises if he is otherwise
completely freed from duties during the meal period.

Pork

As I wrote in my last posting. It is great to see all of this research. I believe we are quoting from the same information which is factual. My personal experience and direct dealings with the wage and hour auditors with the after the fact dispersment of penalties helped me to interpret your and my same information as being regulatory to give paid breaks, as written in the regulations and to insure employees are given their meal breaks in accordance with the law, or make sure management/leaders understand that no one can be required to work through meal periods without compensation for those working hours. Additionally, to understand that if they are allowed to be in the working area that the individual can not do any work at all or they will be compensated for the entire meal break.

You readers out there, I'm writing to this post based on personal experience and written documents and the other poster number 14 is quoting from the words on the WEB site, both are real and useable to answer your concerns that fit your companies' needs. We simply choose to professionally express our thoughts on the issue from the different levels of experience and circumstance.

I still recommend, to stay out of trouble and to support the employee, to use the written or WEB law as your basis to insure the ee is paid for and given 15 minute breaks in the morning and in the afternoon (or evening and morning shift s as may be the case for 24 hour operations). Reason is we all need the positive social life provided in a physical break from the working task, to get away from the constant stress of the nature of work in any profession. For the breakfast/lunch/dinner or supper Meal breaks make them happen for the benefit of the ee and the good of the company. Keep management and leaders informed of the cost of abusing ees with over work and no compensation. Be up-front and honest with the ee and use the written law to keep management at bay! If we work the ee we must pay! Abuse the ee with the belief that the law does not say thou shall: and you will, like one of my past companies' did, you will pay more dearly than what you wished.

My advice, PORK

E Wart

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E Wart

We recently had this question come up in one of our plants so I checked it with the W/H folks in each state, and TX was one of them. They do not have any laws, but abide by the FLSA/Fed law.
What we were told is that basically they are not required by Federal lwa to have ANY breaks. However, if breaks are given (rest or meal), they must be paid if they are under 25 minutes. Also, if a person takes a "break" longer than 30 minutes (for whatever reason) and they continue working or are called to work during this time, they should be paid as well.
I don't think this agrees totally with what Pork says, but what I was told.
(However, folks in other states be careful because this is different per state, i.e. CA, TN, etc.)

E Wart