Employers do not have to pay their employees for meal breaks. While state law requires a meal break, it does not require employers to take shorter breaks throughout the day. An employer may grant these breaks at its own discretion. Unfortunately, the practice of depriving employees of their well-deserved lunch breaks is widespread, and we`d love to have a chance to hear your stories. Know your rights under New York law and don`t neglect them. If you feel that you have been wrongly denied a meal break, you should act to protect your rights and hire an experienced labour lawyer to assess your claim. Employees can use meal breaks to rest, but breaks purely based on rest are different. These must be authorized and be between 5 and 20 minutes according to Federal Regulation 29 CFR §785.18 and be counted and paid as part of the hours worked. Unauthorized extensions of these authorized hours do not have to be paid. Federal law does not require employers to provide employees with lunch and/or meal breaks. However, if employers decide to offer their employees lunch and/or meal breaks of twenty (20) minutes or less, the Fair Labour Standards Act requires employers to pay employees for this period. If a lunch and/or meal break lasts thirty (30) minutes or more, the employee does not need to be paid for the time during the break.
The short answer is yes, but there are reservations about this rule. Your shorter 15-minute lunch break will likely be classified as a “short break” under NYS labor laws rather than an actual lunch break. Although New York State labor laws do not require employers to offer short-term rest periods, when provided or taken to employees, they must be counted as working time. The Ministry of Labor complies with Federal Regulation 29 CFR § 785.18, which provides that short rest periods of 5 minutes to approximately 20 minutes are common in the workplace. They promote the employee`s performance and are usually paid as working time. They must be counted as hours worked. Compensatory rest periods cannot be deducted from other working hours such as compensable waiting times or on-call periods. That said, if you opt for a shorter lunch break instead of a full lunch break, your employer will have more influence on the length of your break.
For example, if an employer prevents you from taking more than 5 minutes off, you might be forced to take a real lunch break or a working lunch to have enough time to eat. There is also special attention for people who work alone. If only one person is on duty, they can eat while working. If only one employee works in a certain profession, he can also do without his lunch break. The employer must provide for an uninterrupted meal period if the employee requests it, even if only one employee is on duty. The extension of the Rounding Ordinance to mealtime requirements is appropriate as long as the rounding of start and stop times to count meal time requirements does not result in employees not receiving the necessary meal times for a certain period of time. In short, rounding time is allowed as long as it does not waste employees` time. If you work in New York City and your employer breaks the law by not giving you a meal break, it can be assumed that your employer may also be violating other labor laws. B e.g. anti-discrimination laws and/or wage and labour laws. It`s common for employees to leave workspaces during meal breaks, but no section of labor law says they`re allowed to do so.
It is important that they are relieved of their duties during the break period (unless it is an individual scenario, as described above). Most ordinary workers know that there are lunch break laws in New York State, but many are often confused about the extent of their rights under the law. New York`s food break laws protect workers by requiring their employers to give them at least a 30-minute break for meals. Not everyone always takes a meal break. Sometimes we are so absorbed in our work that we voluntarily skip lunch. Sometimes a work schedule is so busy that we barely find a minute or two to sip a sip of coffee, let alone sit back and have a full lunch. As a labor attorney in New York, we are asked the same questions over and over again during the lunch break, and so we hope that by dealing with many of these common confusions here, we can give you a quick answer without having to seek advice from a lawyer. The New York Food Breakdown Act includes different requirements for factory workers and non-industrial workers. New York`s lunch break laws apply to all public and private sector employers in New York City and their employees who work in the state. In addition, the New York Department of Labor says section 162 applies to anyone who works in blue-collar, white-collar, and managerial jobs covered by the state Labor Code. This means that employers must offer meal breaks to employees and hourly workers.
Sometimes a shift has only one person on duty or one qualified person for the position. In this scenario, the employee can either eat at work (but only with their explicit consent that it is acceptable and if they are paid for the time) or they can request an uninterrupted lunch break. These circumstances require employers to make it very clear to workers at the pre-employment stage that such shifts may require meals taken at the workplace or a clear request for a specific meal and rest period. An employment relationship must be distinguished from that of an independent contractor, as only employees are entitled to lunch/meal breaks under the NYLL. An employee depends on the company they serve, while an independent contractor works in their own business. .
