Human Resource Blog

Breaks

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An employee has been required to work several times at her job, for anywhere between 8 and 12 hrs. She has never had a break. Also she has been scheduled to work 10 days straight. Any labor laws governing this?

This will depend upon which state the employee is in, and the employees age. Workers under the age of 16 are entitled to breaks by federal law. There are also limits to the number of hours that they can work. Some states set restrictions on employees who are under 18.

Assuming that the employee is over the age of 18, there are 31 states that do not have any law requiring a lunch break or meal period of any kind, regardless of how long the shift is. Meal breaks of some sort are required under state law for most employees in California, Colorado, Connecticut, Deleware, Illinois, Kentucky, Maine, Massachusetts, Minnesota, Nebraska, Nevada, New Hampshire, New York, North Dakota, Oregon, Rhode Island, Tennessee, Washington and West Virginia.

A few states have law that require an employee to have one day off in each payroll week, unless the employee volunteers to work seven days. Illinois is such a state. In other states, there is no such requirement and employers can legitimately make an employee work 7 days per week.

OSHA assumes that employees are allowed to drink water on duty, and to use the restroom as necessary. They also assume that employees who are not given a meal period are permitted to eat on duty.

Just as a sidlight, it is interesting to note that about 40% of the questions on breaks result from situations where the emplyees want breaks and are not permitted to take them. Almost an equal number come from employees who want to work straight through without a break, and are required by law or company policy to take one! This seems to be an issue where it is difficult to reach a happy medium.