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Contact UsRest Periods
Employees are authorized to take rest periods, which, insofar as practicable, shall be in the middle of each work period. The rest period time shall be based on the total hours worked daily at the rate of 10 minutes of net rest time per 4 hours, or major fraction thereof. Rest periods are counted as time worked.
A rest period does not have to be authorized for an employee whose total daily work time is less than 3 ½ hours. Unlike meal periods, the supervisor does not have to insist that the employee take the rest period, but only to authorize and permit it.
If a non-exempt employee (02 or 03) is not authorized and permitted to take a rest period, the penalty that is paid to the employee is the equivalent of one hour of wages at their regular rate of pay per day.
You are not permitted to work through the break to reduce time from your regular hours of work in order to leave work early, nor may breaks be skipped to make up for missed work time. Breaks may not be saved to take a longer rest period at a later time, nor may break time be added to the lunch period.
Meal Periods
Under California labor law, non-exempt employees (02 or 03) may not work more than 5 hours without a meal break of at least 30 minutes. However, if the total work period for the day is not more than six hours, then the meal period may be waived by mutual consent between the employee and his/her supervisor. The meal break is unpaid and is for 30 to 60 minutes, depending on the department's schedule.
A second meal period is required if an employee works more than 10 hours per day unless the work period is less than 12 hours, in which case the second meal period may be waived by mutual consent between the employee and his/her supervisor.
Employees cannot legally waive their meal break periods, and supervisors are responsible to insure that meal breaks are recorded accurately on the employee’s time record. Missed or late meal breaks require that the employee be paid one hour of penalty straight-time pay per day.
