Rest and Meal Breaks: You can Take the Attorney’s Help!
Providing rest and meal breaks should be in every office. Are you getting a 10–15-minute rest break every four working hours? Are you getting 30-45-minute meal breaks every five hours you have worked? Is your overtime paid? Are you receiving itemized wage statements? According to the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA), employers should not consider rest and meal breaks for employees to get permission. They should be mandatory for workers. If they don’t get it, attorneys can help them.
For instance, an employer permits employees to take short rest breaks. They should be compensated for their time when they are on these breaks. Suppose an employee earns $5 every 10 minutes and takes a 10-minute break. They should get bucks for this break. However, employees taking more than the permitted break should understand why they are not getting paid for those additional minutes.
Bona Fide Meal Break
The management often allows their employees to take 30 minutes to one hour of a meal break. The FLSA considers these extended breaks as bona fide meal breaks. An employee on this break is entirely off the clock and not compensated. Also, they are not expected to perform any job duties.
There are breaks known as bona fide sleep breaks, sometimes given to employees when scheduled to work a shift of over 24 hours. Employees should not compensate for bona fide sleep breaks in shifts above 24 hours. However, they must be compensated if their shift is less than 24 hours.
Knowing about the rest and meal breaks laws is necessary to avoid adverse outcomes. Moreover, personal injury and other similar cases too hold compensation regulations.
