Yes, you can bring a legal claim associated with the employer not providing you with a reasonable opportunity to take your meal or rest periods.
Employers must get an employee's written agreement in advance for taking on duty meals. Workers must also be able to withdraw their consent to this arrangement at any time. In California, ing to labor laws, employees can waive their lunch break if their work shift is six hours or less.
First check your state's labor laws to see if breaks are required. If so, you can file a complaint. If the company is not in violation of any of your state's labor laws, then complaining would be useless. If there is a violation, then your company could be investigated and perhaps even fined.
No, under California law rest period time is based on the total hours worked daily, and only one ten-minute rest period need be authorized for every four hours of work or major fraction thereof.
Employers who make it difficult or impossible for their workers to take these legally-protected breaks owe their workers compensation for forcing them to miss their breaks. Should they fail to provide this compensation, these employers could face a lawsuit based on California law.
Federal Break Laws: What Breaks are Required? The Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA), the primary federal law governing labor standards, does not require employers to provide meal or rest breaks. Short breaks, typically lasting about 5 to 20 minutes, are common in workplaces.
Rest breaks must also be spaced out so that they fall in the middle of each work period. This means if employees work 8 hour shifts, they should have one rest break before their meal break and the second rest break afterwards.
For example, an employee who works a seven-hour shift is entitled to two 10-minute rest breaks. One break for the first four hours, and a second break for the last three hours.
Trust me, this is a very common question and many like you are surprised that there is no federal law requiring that employees be given breaks in the United States. An employer has the right to make you work 12 hours without a break or even 16 hours.