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Unpaid Meal Breaks

Judge Grants Class Certification to Walmart Workers

California law provides a number of protections above and beyond the protections that are afforded to employees under the federal Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA).  For example, California law requires that employees be provided with a meal and two rest breaks when they work an eight-hour shift. Additionally, if they work over 8 hours in a day, daily overtime premiums kick in. There are also requirements that the employer provide an employee with very detailed paystubs that must contain specific information.

On January 9, 2018, a federal judge in California certified a class of current and former employees of the big-box retail giant Walmart, who alleged violations of the FLSA and the California Labor Code. Three classes were certified, which range in size from 52,000 employees to nearly 76,000 employees. Most courts – including courts in the Ninth Circuit – follow a two-step approach to collective action certification.

Where Walmart Went Wrong

At the first stage, courts do not evaluate the merits of the Plaintiff’s legal claims but instead focus solely on whether the members of the proposed class are similarly situated to each other. According to U.S. District Judge Lucy H. Koh, Walmart made the mistake of attacking the merit of the Plaintiffs’ legal claims instead of arguing that the Plaintiffs were not similarly situated to each other. Judge Koh disregarded Walmart’s merit-based arguments and granted certification to the class.

Collective or class actions are advantageous tools for employees who are the victims of wage theft. They can be a powerful mechanism to deter employers from skimming off their employees’ wages. While an individual employee may have only a few hundred dollars stolen, an employer can easily pay them off and sweep their claims under the rug. This permits employers to continue skimming wages.  However, when the employer faces a collective action, all the aggrieved employees are notified of the violation and provided with the opportunity to join the lawsuit to seek back wages against the employer.

The case is Magadia v Wal-Mart Associates Inc., et al, case number 17-cv-00062, and is pending in the United States District Court for the Northern District of California.

 

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Recent Lawsuit Update: Val Verde Regional Medical Center

Last week, a group of LVNs and RNs filed suit in a Texas federal court against the companies operating the Val Verde Regional Medical Center, bringing claims under the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) and related state laws. The plaintiffs allege that the defendants automatically deducted their pay for meal periods—regardless of whether a meal break was taken or whether employees were not completely relieved from their work duties. According to the lawsuit, the workers are entitled to compensation because the nature of the job requires performance of work during meal periods. The plaintiffs seek relief in the form of lost wages, liquidated damages, injunctive relief, and attorneys’ fees.

It is important to remember that this practice occurs in many different industries, including the hospital industry. Employers frequently fail to follow the FLSA’s rules for properly compensating employees for meal breaks. Under the FLSA, nonexempt employees must be paid at least the minimum wage for all hours worked, plus overtime pay at a rate of one and one half times the regular rate for hours worked in excess of 40 in a workweek. Employees must be paid for all work that is “suffered or permitted.”  For meal breaks, employers can deduct pay only if the break takes 30 minutes or more and only if the employee is completely free from job duties during the break.  If any work is performed, the meal doesn’t count as a lunch break and remains paid time.

 

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Automatic Deductions for Meal Breaks and the Law—What You Need to Know

Lunch breaks are an essential part of most employees’ work days. However, many employers do not properly compensate employees for this time. Although the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) does not require employers to provide breaks or meal periods to workers, specific rules apply to employers who choose to do so. Employees must be paid for breaks lasting 20 minutes or less. Employers may deduct pay for meal periods only if the break takes 30 minutes or more, so long as the employee is completely free from job duties during this time. When a meal break becomes interrupted for any job-related duty, no matter how short the interruption lasts, the employee must be paid for the entire break.

Using “automatic deduction policies” as a shortcut around the FLSA’s requirements

Employers can run into trouble by implementing “automatic deduction policies” as a shortcut around the FLSA’s requirements. Rather than have employees clock in and clock out for meal breaks, many employers will automatically deduct the break time from employees’ hours each day. The problem with this practice is that wages often go unpaid because it does not take into account any work performed during a lunch break—whether that is an employee working straight through their lunch, answering a quick phone call or email from a supervisor during a break, or other interruptions during the break because of any other work-related duties.

Over the past few years, numerous class and collective actions have been filed alleging that employers have maintained these company-wide automatic deduction policies, even though employees never took a full uninterrupted meal break.  If you feel that you are not being properly paid wages you have earned, call us for a free consultation at 1-866-411-5576. You may have a viable claim and we can help you determine the best course of action after thorough consideration of your situation.