Meal and Rest Breaks

Abstract

Allowing employees to take short breaks during their workday is a common employment practice in many industries and is generally considered to increase the efficiency of employees. While providing breaks to employees is not federally mandated, state statutes and regulations in many states do require employers to provide their employees with meal and rest breaks. Specific break requirements, however, vary from state to state. Whereas some states do not mandate that employers provide any meal or rest breaks to employees, other states require that employers provide up to an hour of break time to employees who work an 8-h shift. Litigation arises when employees allege that they did not receive the meal and/or rest breaks to which they were legally entitled, the break they received was shorter than the minimum break required, or the break was not taken within a required window of time. Breaks may also be considered non-compliant when employees are interrupted to perform work tasks during their breaks or have certain activities restricted during their break, thus preventing them from being relived of all duties. Costs associated with violating meal and rest break requirements can be substantial. This chapter provides a general framework for evaluating meal and rest break compliance that will be applicable in most circumstances which includes analysis of electronic data, self-report approaches, and observation approaches.