You must log in or # to comment.
Hahahaha, I’d be forwarding that straight to Dept of Labor
And I would CC Brenda on the forwarded email
Hahahaha
In my state there is no legal requirement for any break whatsoever for adults -_-
If they are offered however, 20 minutes or less are required to be paid, and no matter the amount of time, if you are expected to do anything (answer phones, emails, monitor equipment, etc) then that break must be paid. But when and how long you take a break, if at all, is completely up to the company :(
So if this were in my state, whether this would be allowed or not would be entirely dependent on what company policy on breaks is, and I’m sure they would’ve written that to benefit themselves
(Ohio)
I thought for sure you were wrong and that Federal law mandated breaks and lunch. But fucking hell, nope. I’m glad don’t live in a red state. We have breaks and lunch required by law, and at least a decent minimum wage.4 hours=paid break. 6 hours = paid break and unpaid lunch. 8 hours has 2 paid breaks and lunch. There’s some exceptions, like farm work. And if you can’t leave your job and have to take a working lunch. But then they have to pay you for it.
About 20 states require breaks, that’s all.
30 minute unpaid (no work legally allowed to be done. if you are still expected to, say, answer calls, then you’d have to be paid for that time) lunch breaks are pretty standard here (I’m in Cincinnati, might be different in other parts of the state)
but there’s absolutely nothing preventing the company from saying “nah you don’t get a break today” unless they restrain THEMSELVES in THEIR policy that THEY write
(Except minors, they are legally required to have a 30 minute break if they work 5 hours or more)
Breaks might not be required, but you still aren’t allowed to take a break from paying an employee while still making them work.
“support your work family”
RUN AWAY!
A New Optimization Opportunity
But… we bring you loooooovvveee…
That was the first thing that jumped out. If anyone said that to me, I would be sending out resumes during that 30 minute break.
To render unto Ceasar… work is the second kost discussed topic during my theraoy sessions, right after family trauma.
This reads like someone collecting momentum to fire OOP anyhow.
“It really doesn’t look good for you to take your break during your break time, so please avoid taking breaks during your break.”
– Someone that clearly hasn’t worked in a while
Cool, so since I only took 20 minutes for lunch, I’ll be heading home 40 minutes earlier.
I used to do that and nobody batted an eye. I guess my coworkers were slightly better than Eric’s though.
Also it was technically illegal lol
The proper response isn’t to quit, It to send a response that says that the law requires a break, and you intend to follow the law, even if my supervisor demands that I break the law. I will not follow an illegal directive.
I’m the future, I will take all legal breaks, for their full amount of time.
Further, I will be saving this email as evidence, in case of any future lawsuits by any employees. Any future discussion of this subject will be shared with the state department of labor.
And I would copy HR.
They’d just find a bullshit reason to let you go, then break more laws sharing disallowed details about your employment.
Sadly, in the US at least, the regulatory capture is complete. Any company acting like this (blatantly breaking labor laws and ignoring worker rights) knows they’ll pay less than the cost of keeping the water cooler full in the off chance the labor board sends them more than a mildly worded letter.
Edit: I was feeling pretty pessimistic when I wrote this, I didn’t intend it you come across as “don’t try” but I can certainly see how it comes across that way. We should all be holding the companies and the regulatory agencies accountable, and not letting them get away with breaking laws. Enough people making enough noise can’t be swept under the rug.
I’m not so sure. With that letter, and your response, its going to be hard for them to claim that your firing wasn’t retaliatory.
Yeah, skip the email. Go directly to telling the department of labor.
If it is a private company with a ‘work family’ mentality they’ll ignore it entirely on the gamble those kinds of entities never hire, or pay, anyone enough to afford a wrongful termination lawsuit.
And if so, they’ll be willing to lie under oath. They’re already willing to break the law. They’ll have the remaining employees, in the rare odds they’re deposed, do the same. If they’re already working through lunch, they’ll sign a document for their boss that says you stole something.
Except you’ve got an email where the boss specifically advises you to break the law. They can lie all they want, but that email clearly outlines their illegal policy and expectations.
They can lie, but a judge might declare that to be perjury in light of that email.
Their goal would be to muddy the waters so that their decision is reframed as something other than wrongful termination.
The e-mail, when paired with evidence that smears the terminated party, (forged or not) creates a dynamic where severance appears necessary.
The company can claim they fired the person because they didn’t want to pursue criminal charges for theft or smear their name and hope they find Christ or something. And that works with judges. Even in the face of overwhelming evidence of wrongdoing and misconduct: they’ll just be analyzing if the termination was wrongful.
This is one of the many reasons why unions are important, by the way.
This is one of the many reasons why unions are important, by the way.
Oh, yeah, unionize EVERYTHING. The ONLY reason we have all the employee protections and benefits we have are because of unions. Literally every single thing an employee gets beyond “work harder, or you’re fired from your dangerous low-paying job” is because of unions.
This is true. Company could easily wait a while then hit OP with a vaguely worded pip. Bam, magically they get let go for “performance” issues that seemingly have nothing to do with how they take their lunches.
No, you can still win lawsuits against companies that do that. They rely on the reluctance of people to sue and on people like you who try to talk people out of defending their rights to get away with it.
“My apologies, this wasnt brought forward in the interview stage. If it continues to be a problem I will.be reachable on this email address.”
This can’t real
If it is, I think it’s illegal in the US at least. By law I think employers are required to give at least one 30 minute break a day.
Employees have rights in the US?
Some of us do, and our employers hate it and try to keep us from knowing/using those rights
Only in some states. There is no federal law mandating breaks or meals.
This is why I don’t goto Buc-ees when traveling. They only operate in states with little to no worker protection and they do not allow their employees to have any breaks. Yes they pay a few dollars more per hour but absolute abuse their employees. So as nice as their mega gas stations are , they will never get another dollar from me.
The buc-ee’s simping is so weird to me. It’s just a gas station with a gift shop. Like, I get it, it’s got nice bathrooms, nobody is disagreeing, but so many road trips with big groups somebody wants to go there and spend like 30 minutes shopping. I hate it.
It’s like a Walmart, Cracker Barrel, and a Sheetz had some unholy abomination of a child. I went exactly once to see what gives everyone such a hard-on, and couldn’t get out fast enough.
Quite surprising that it’s based on state law, rather than something that’s mandated by the US Federal government. Employers being able to forbid their employees from having lunch unless their particular state, or medical requirements force their hand does not seem like a legal thing.
It does track, since the US was also one of the few countries that does not consider food to be a mandatory right (their official justification here), but still.
I don’t find it surprising at all.
The whole idea of breaks during the work day came from early-day capitalists (check out Factory Act and how it came to be. And for those who don’t want to/can’t - it wasn’t from the goodness of their hearts, they noticed that their workers were making too many costly mistakes, like getting themselves rolled into heavy machinery and dying, so they asked doctors to “figure this shit out”. The Factory Act is the earliest iteration of what eventually became OSHA), some of whom showed at least a semblance of honour, and following the actual tenets of capitalism (giving back to the community).
It became the “everybody knows this” kind of thing.
Then times have changed. Today’s capitalists are a bunch of babies with way too much power, who don’t know how they came to be, or why the “gentleman rules” that were in place happened. All they see is that if someone takes a 30 minute break, they’re not working for 30 minuts (making shareholders cry! :( ).
The federal government didn’t need to mandate this, because “everybody did this anyway”, and if one state was having issues, it mandated that on their own.
There isn’t a state where there is no mandatory unpaid meal break.
Yes, all states mandate meal breaks except Alabama, Alaska, Arizona, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Hawaii, Idaho, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Louisiana, Michigan, Mississippi, Missouri, Montana, New Jersey, New Mexico, North Carolina, Ohio, Oklahoma, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, South Dakota, Texas, Utah, Virginia, Wisconsin, and Wyoming (source)
I live in Arizona, I can assure you it is mandatory.
Can you give me a link the law mandating meal breaks? The only bit of Arizona legislature I can find regarding meal breaks is HB 2797, which did not pass into actual law.
Like everything, it depends on how influential the company is.
I reported a restaurant job for wage theft, and when I was terminated, got a nice paycheck from the local government a few months later.
Major telecom company that rhymes with Bomcast as customer service. I had a manager demand that work means “when you’re at your desk”, so lunch, walking to your desk, bathroom breaks, aren’t supposed to be tracked as work. People we’re eating at their desk and working just to meet the definition.
Lawsuit went nowhere.
“Illegal” who enforces that lol. You complain to get fired unless you have a legal team ready to go against a corrupt corporation. I’ve watched companies break all kinds of laws my entire life and it’s about to get a whole lot worse.
There are labor lawyers that take cases like this on contingency. A case like this is a slam dunk for them. You don’t have to just sit there and take it.
Oh I see you still have hope that our system works for anyone except the corporations and oligarchs. That has not been my experience
It can real.
Woah.
We had an HR person complaining to us that a group of us would leave the office every day and go out together to eat lunch.
Didn’t complain that we spent too long eating. Just that we went out together for lunch every day…
Sounds like someone was jealous
Same but it was a liquid lunch tbf
Our CEO restructured the company when he felt our department was “too cliquish”.
This is too rage-inducing to be real … Right?
This specific email from Brenda is most likely a fictional version of something that does actually happen fairly regularly. There are laws in many countries and even in some US states mandating breaks because of companies or leadership or HR encouraging them to never stop working.
The issue isn’t the ‘never stop working’ part, that sucks but isn’t illegal. It’s the ‘stop paying but don’t stop working’ part that’s a problem.
“Never stop working” definitely is illegal in many places.
Stop paying but don’t stop working is literally what expecting someone to work through their break is.
Correct.
If this is real, I’m bigger than Ron Jeremy.
deleted by creator
I’ve never seen one of these where the company actually got named.
corporate speak is revolting.
Let’s correct this behaviour :-)
it sounds like an evil nursery worker
Sure thing, Brenda! I’ll be sure to invite my work family to lunch with me for the full allotted time so no one feels unsupported! Thank you for the idea!
Ah I see you’re implementing some out of the box productivity boosting by altering the mindset goals and quarterly observation deadlines.
(Brenda is the new Karen?)
Time to take 30 minutes to eat your sandwich.
“I have to eat super slow. Doctor’s orders. Since no special accommodations are required to meet my medical needs, your not legally entitled to see documentation. Sorry Brenda.”
I suppose this shit is from u$ or another such savage country. In Europe the company would pay a huge penalty for putting pressure to limit the break time.
Even in Latin American countries where protections are weaker, this would be considered wildly unacceptable. Only Americans would do this
Living the American dream I guess.
Everybody want to come here! Yeah for sure /s
That’s illegal in the US too.
The OP has a pretty solid case, the manager laid it out in writing. This should immediately get forwarded to HR, upper management. Depending on their response, everything goes to the Department of Labour.
The hard part is proving retaliation, (also illegal). Calling out these types of “team player” people leads to indirect stuff like poor performance reviews, smaller raises, denied PTO, and getting passed up for promotion because you didn’t play on their team.
Labor lawyers love these cases since you have the illegal act in writing. At that point, even with the made up performance reviews it’s super easy to prove a subsequent firing was retaliatory.
If they’re smart enough to only break the law face to face, be sure to send an email summary to them and HR and bcc a copy for yourself. If that’s not possible, then keep detailed notes with timestamps.
Illegal in California
Illegal even in Florida. If you have to clock out for breaks you get 1/2 hour minimum lunch on an 8 hour shift. Plus I think 2 paid 15 minute breaks, on the clock. I can’t imagine this is real because no manager would document the illegal request in an email.
Hi Brenda!
Thank you for your enthusiasm in squeezing my tight knit work family, even tighter ❤️
I will be saving this email for my wrongful termination lawsuit 🤤
Let’s keep things going in the right direction, and follow the law 🤣
Mental
Hi Brenda,
While you were watching me and writing me memos, you could have been making sales.
Don’t ever put pettiness over money, keep yourself focused on your work instead of your coworkers.
Warmest Regards,
Harambe
Time to go to my car for my lunch break
Yeah this. Imagine Brenda hovering over you, pointedly checking the time.
