An investigation by the US Department of Labor’s Wage and Hour Division determined that a Pennsylvania treatment center manually deducted a 30-minute break, even from nurses who were unable to take their lunch breaks due to staffing issues and workload. A consent judgement by a US District Court of Pennsylvania ordered payment of the nurses back wages and liquidated damages.
The Wage and Hour Division Investigation determined that when the treatment facility deducted the nurses’ 30-minute lunch breaks, they did not pay full wages to the affected nurses. The results of the investigation led to the recovery of $221,307 in back wages and damages to the 32 affected nurses. Additionally, the treatment facility has been ordered to pay $33,184 in civil money penalties for the repeated and willful nature of the violations. In 2019, the same treatment facility had committed similar violations.
Adam Welsh, Counsel for Wage and Hour with the Department’s Office of the Solicitor in Philadelphia stated, “This consent judgment will help to ensure that employees are paid for all of the hours they work, and that employers who violate the law are held accountable.”
Compliance Perspective
Issue
Meal breaks are not considered worktime, but the employee must be completely relieved from duty for the purposes of eating meals. The employee is considered not to be relieved if required to perform any duties during the meal break allotted time. A meal break is usually 30 minutes or longer, and a rest period can range from 5-20 minutes in duration. A rest period must be counted as hours worked. If employees cannot take their 30-minute meal break due to work related issues, the employee must be paid for this time. Violations of not paying for the time allotted for a meal period when a meal break did not occur in its entirety can be seen as a violation of the Fair Labor Standards Act and can result in fines and other penalties.
Discussion Points
- Review your policy and procedures on rest and meal breaks and pay eligibility. Update your policy as needed.
- Train all staff on what is considered a meal break and what is considered a rest period. Train appropriate staff on ensuring that employees are compensated for rest periods, and that meal breaks are uninterrupted or the time is paid if the employee has worked for all or part of the allotted time. Document that these trainings occurred and file each signed document in the employee’s education file.
- Periodically audit to ensure that rest periods were considered for payroll purposes as time worked, and that employees are receiving at least a 30-minute meal break during an eight-hour shift. If staff are unable to take their unpaid meal period, and in fact have worked during that time, ensure that they are compensated at the correct hourly rate.
