#California lunch break law free

They also must be paid for their break time according to their regular rate of pay.Īnother special case is when employees are required by their jobs to stay on-site but can be fully relieved from their duties for meal breaks. Workers must be allowed to revoke their agreement at any time. In these cases, “on-duty” meal breaks can be allowed, as long as both the employee and employer agree to them in advance and in writing. There are some situations when workers may not be able to exercise as much freedom during their meal breaks due to the nature of their jobs.Įmployees who are on a shift alone, or in a remote location - like a nighttime security guard, or a lone worker at a coffee kiosk - can’t be totally relieved of their duties, as the law requires.

#California lunch break law free

Employees can spend this time however they want - on meals, personal business, or even running errands.ĭuring this period, the law says you’re free from any work responsibilities and are entitled to come and go as you please from your place of work - for at least 30 minutes. Working more than 10 hours? You get a second 30-minute meal break sometime before you reach that tenth hour of work.ĭespite what its name implies, you’re not required to eat during your meal break. So if you’re a dishwasher and your shift started at 12 p.m., the law says that you’re due a meal break before 5 p.m. Nonexempt employees - workers paid hourly - are legally entitled to one 30-minute meal break for every five hours of work.Īccording to the law, your break should technically come before the end of your fifth hour of work.

In California, the timing of your meal breaks is determined by the number of hours you’ve worked in your shift.

Under California law, a meal break is an unpaid, uninterrupted period of at least 30 minutes during which employees are totally free of their work duties.Įmployers are required to respect workers’ rights to these breaks - it’s illegal to discourage you from taking them or incentivize you for skipping them. Where You Can Find Our California Offices When Are Workers Entitled To Meal Breaks In California? If you have questions or would like to speak with an experienced California meal and rest break lawyer, please contact us today. We will also go over what kinds of workers are and aren’t entitled to these breaks, and what actions you can take to get restitution when your right to a break is violated. In this blog post, we’ll break down what California’s labor law says about meal and rest periods. And it costs California workers an estimated $2 billion per year. One of the most easily overlooked ways that employers steal from their workers? Violating their rights to meal and rest breaks.Ĭutting short required break times, pressuring or incentivizing employees to work through them, or making it impossible to even take a break in the first place - all of this is considered a form of illegal wage theft under California law. Although employees in California are protected by some of the strongest employment laws in the U.S., workers here also experience some of the highest rates of employer wage theft in the country.