Meal Breaks

Nonexempt employees in Los Angeles are generally entitled to a duty-free, uninterrupted and unpaid meal break lasting a minimum of 30 minutes after working five hours. If an employer fails to provide these breaks or encourages an employee to bypass them, it violates wage and hour laws.

California law provides all nonexempt employees a meal break of no less than 30 minutes that must commence prior to the completion of hour five in an employee’s shift. During this 30 minute or more break, the employee is no longer under the direction of his or her employer, the employee is not “on-call”, and the employee is entitled to step away from his or her duties for 30 consecutive and uninterrupted minutes.

Employees who are scheduled to work a shift that lasts longer than ten hours, a second meal break must be provided by an employer no later than the tenth hour. The same rules for the break apply – the employee is free of all work duties, commitments, and direction of his or her employer.

The determination of a qualifying meal break under California law relies on the hours actually worked by an employee. Therefore, if an employee was scheduled to work a seven hour shift, but only worked for two of those hours, he or she does not qualify for a meal break. If the employee did actually work all hours of his or her shift, the meal breaks to which that employee is entitled must be provided.

Additionally, if an employee is not given a qualifying meal break to which he or she is entitled at the legally obligated time and the employee continues working as a result, that employee must be compensated for the time he or she worked beyond the five hours as provided by law, at the normal hourly pay rate.

Employees are entitled to waive any meal break to which he or she has qualified to take, as long as that employee’s shift does not continue past six hours in total. A qualifying meal break may only be waived through a previously agreed upon arrangement between employer and employee. This arrangement can be done verbally, it is not required to be in writing.

An employee who works a shift that extends past ten hours but does not continue longer than twelve hours qualifies for a second meal break. This break may be waived only if both parties agree to do so AND the earlier meal break in the shift was not waived.

Employees are not allowed to waive both meal breaks over the course of a ten hour shift. Choosing to waive a meal break and work through the break in order to end the workday sooner than expected is not allowed by law.

Finally, should an employer attempt to discourse, obstruct, or in any way attempt to coerce an employee into waiving a meal break is strictly prohibited by law. This extends to incentivizing or intimidating any employee to do the same.

While employers must comply with the law by providing meal breaks at the prescribed intervals throughout an employee’s work shift, an employer does not have to guarantee or take steps to ensure that any employee takes his or her qualifying meal break. That is solely at the employee’s discretion.

Some employees may not have a job position that permits them to take a meal break as provided by California law. Their job duties may keep them at their post or on the job for the entirety of their shift without an opportunity to step away for a meal break. But these employees still qualify to take a meal break.

For these employees, an “on-duty” meal break must be provided by law. This type of meal break must be arranged between employee and employer and the employee must be given the choice to terminate the agreement at any time.

If an “on-duty” qualifying meal break is missed by an employee for any reason, the employer does not have to compensate that employee for missing their meal break.