California Meal Period Policy

Purpose/Objective

[Company Name] provides and affords all nonexempt employees who work more than five hours in a workday with an uninterrupted, duty-free, 30-minute meal period. This meal period is to begin no later than the end of the fifth hour of work. The company also provides and affords a second uninterrupted, duty-free, 30-minute meal period when an employee works more than 10 hours in a workday. This second meal period is to begin no later than the end of the 10th hour of work.

Eligibility

Nonexempt employees who work more than five hours in a workday are provided and afforded an uninterrupted, duty-free, 30-minute meal period that is to begin no later than the end of the fifth hour of work.

Nonexempt employees who work more than 10 hours in a workday are provided and afforded a second uninterrupted, duty-free, 30-minute meal period that is to begin no later than the end of the 10th hour of work.

[If implementing meal period waivers: Only in the limited circumstances, discussed below, can meal periods be waived. For this reason, unless there is a written agreement for an on-duty meal period approved by [human resources/other job title], employees must record the beginning and ending time of their meal periods in the time-keeping system every workday.]

Procedures

Relieved of all duty

Company policy is to relieve employees of all duty during their meal periods, so that employees are free to use their meal period times as they wish. The company schedules work assignments with the expectation that all employees will take their duty-free meal periods, and the company encourages employees to do so.

Employees may be asked to confirm in writing that they have been relieved of all duty and otherwise provided all their meal periods during a particular pay period, or in the alternative, to identify any meal periods that they have missed. At no time may any employee perform off-the-clock work or otherwise alter, falsify or manipulate any aspect of their time-keeping records to inaccurately reflect or hide meal periods taken or time spent working during meal periods.

Please note that no company manager or supervisor is authorized to instruct an employee how to spend his or her personal time during a meal period. Employees should immediately report a manager’s or supervisor’s instruction to skip or work during a meal period to [human resources/other job title].

Waiver of meal period

Employees may waive their meal periods only when they will complete their workday in six hours. If employees work more than 10 hours in a day, they may waive their second meal periods only if they take their first meal periods and they do not work more than 12 hours that day. [If using written meal period waivers: Employees wishing to waive a meal period are required to submit a completed and signed meal period waiver form to [human resources/other job title].]

On-duty meal period

In limited situations when the nature of employees’ duties prevent the employees from being relieved of all duty, certain designated employees may be authorized to work an “on-duty meal period.” Employees will be permitted to take an on-duty meal period only if the nature of their job duties requires an on-duty meal period, and the employees and the company have agreed in advance and in writing to an on-duty meal period. In this situation, the on-duty meal period will be paid and treated as hours worked.