Is this legal? Staff only allowed 20 mins break for a nine hour shift
- Thread starter editor
- Start date
bcuster
Well-Known Member
Breaks and Meal Periods
Federal law does not require lunch or coffee breaks. However, when employers do offer short breaks (usually lasting about 5 to 20 minutes), federal law considers the breaks as compensable work hours that would be included in the sum of hours worked during the workweek and considered in...
Federal law does not require lunch or coffee breaks. However, when employers do offer short breaks (usually lasting about 5 to 20 minutes), federal law considers the breaks as compensable work hours that would be included in the sum of hours worked during the workweek and considered in determining if overtime was worked. Unauthorized extensions of authorized work breaks need not be counted as hours worked when the employer has expressly and unambiguously communicated to the employee that the authorized break may only last for a specific length of time, that any extension of the break is contrary to the employer's rules, and any extension of the break will be punished.
Meal periods (typically lasting at least 30 minutes), serve a different purpose than coffee or snack breaks and, thus, are not work time and are not compensable.
Yes, legal, but shitty
www.gov.uk
Rest breaks at work
Workers' rights to rest breaks at work - length of breaks, how your age affects rest breaks, exceptions to the rules for shift workers, young people, and drivers
cupid_stunt
Chief seagull hater & farmerbarleymow's nemesis.
Name and shame the buggers!
editor
hiraethified
Caffe Nero. I guess all the others are the same too. I'm genuinely shocked. The poor woman is exhausted.
Callie
Pivoting
That seems to be 'the law' to the letter The right to rest - Rest and breaks at work - Acas but I think most employers do not work like that. So legal but highly immoral and get a new job ASAP
Pickman's model
Starry Wisdom
She should join a union and encourage her colleagues to do the same
Puddy_Tat
naturally fluffy
Breaks and Meal Periods
Federal law does not require lunch or coffee breaks. However, when employers do offer short breaks (usually lasting about 5 to 20 minutes), federal law considers the breaks as compensable work hours that would be included in the sum of hours worked during the workweek and considered in...www.dol.gov
Federal law does not require lunch or coffee breaks. However, when employers do offer short breaks (usually lasting about 5 to 20 minutes), federal law considers the breaks as compensable work hours that would be included in the sum of hours worked during the workweek and considered in determining if overtime was worked. Unauthorized extensions of authorized work breaks need not be counted as hours worked when the employer has expressly and unambiguously communicated to the employee that the authorized break may only last for a specific length of time, that any extension of the break is contrary to the employer's rules, and any extension of the break will be punished.
Meal periods (typically lasting at least 30 minutes), serve a different purpose than coffee or snack breaks and, thus, are not work time and are not compensable.
.gov is america, not UK.
that.
Lord Camomile
Yipchaa!
Yeah, back in my Blockbuster days we'd get 20 mins on an eight hour shift. I think if we ended up doing a ten hour shift (not frequent, but did happen) then our boss would let us have two breaks across that time.
You might have hoped things would've changed in the past 20 years
Really will squeeze all they can from you.
My mate who works an ambulance gets 30 mins on a 12 hour shift, and they do often go longer than that, and obviously far more mentally and physically stressful than any shift at Blockbuster. Genuinely enrages me.
You might have hoped things would've changed in the past 20 years
Really will squeeze all they can from you.
My mate who works an ambulance gets 30 mins on a 12 hour shift, and they do often go longer than that, and obviously far more mentally and physically stressful than any shift at Blockbuster. Genuinely enrages me.
SpookyFrank
Float like a caterpillar, sting like a tree
Pick something horrendous employers do, and yeah somehow they're allowed to do it.
andysays
Love and solidarity
They are allowed to do it by law and unfortunately they're able to get away with it in many workplaces because workers aren't organised and aren't in a position to demand better terms and conditions.
All employers are horrendous given the chance, and the only thing which acts against that is effective unions.
Puddy_Tat
naturally fluffy
reading stuff on here from health service workers, i'm surprised that there aren't better legal limits on the hours health workers can work, in the interests of patients' safety as much as their own. bus / coach / lorry drivers have drivers' hours rules in law, think safety critical railway workers do as well.
RevolutionSound
Active Member
It's the same in the NHS.
ElizabethofYork
Old Crone
Yes, it's bloody awful. There are loads of really shitty companies around.
Little Piranha
Small or far away?
I'm sure this used to be better, I've worked in hospitality all my life and I thought it was 30 minutes break for any shift over 4.5 hours (didn't have to be paid). Maybe wrong, but my husband who has had similar jobs thought so too.
Cafe I work in now is two 10 minute breaks and one 30 mins, all paid. Shifts are 7-9 hours.
I've always worked in independent places and generally you get treated better than in chains, guess it's partly cos the owner has to look you in the eye.
Cafe I work in now is two 10 minute breaks and one 30 mins, all paid. Shifts are 7-9 hours.
I've always worked in independent places and generally you get treated better than in chains, guess it's partly cos the owner has to look you in the eye.
tim
EXPLODED TIM! (Help me!!!)
She should buy a violin. When in Nero do as Nero did.
InArduisFouette
Active Member
The reality is that the half hour Break for ambulance staff is half an hour generally undisturbed on Station ( on their base station in some services, or on any station in some services)... from my local district hospital it's a 10 minute drive to Station, so that 30 minute break is also 10 minutes drive, 5 minutes restock / clean up time and then 30 minutes break ... so 45 minutes 'unproductive' time,
in terms of driving the aim is that all frontl ine staff should be able to drive Service vehicles and those recruited through a serviced based training route will do their driver training as part of their basic training, however some of the graduate and Overseas Paramedics don't have the relevant UK licences (yet) and haven;t done the Service Driving course (CERAD) ... if both crew members drive it;s typicla to do job aobut or half a shift driving and half a shift 'attending' - assuming the jobs and the crew mix allow
as the hospital queueing situation gradually improves we are seeing crews getting standby , this isn;t a break per se but it's sat either in /near the truck with your radio or at a standby point ( some of which are pretty decent ) not physically working but spreading the available resources around the local area rather than having all the free vehicles lined up on station or at the hospital
ythe 11 hours daily resat thing is rigidly enofrced in many services so if you late off that means you haven;t got 11 hours before you are next due to book on duty , you get the compensatory rest there and then
e.g. if you were doing an 0630-1830 shift on two consiecutive day but on the first day, due to delays handing over or a prolonged job, you didn't get back to station until 2000 hours your day 2 shift will be moved if it;s same crew to give 11 hours off and if you are crewed with someone else you get a late start ( 11 hours after you booked off) and your crewmate sits on station to wait for you )
Last edited:
editor
hiraethified
And today she had to put up with some young, testosterone-infused macho twat physically squaring up to her amd REALLY shouting in her face, while I was the only person that intervened.
Fuck these shit bosses for their pathetic wages and working conditions.
Epona
Sonic: 1 Nov 2006 - 8 Jan 2022
Alas not only is it legal, it's normal in many low paid catering and factory jobs.
N gets a 20 minute break plus a 5 minute cigarette break (which he has to sign in and out for because they don't want people "taking the piss")
Mind you, I'm not sure he'd want a longer break stuck out on an industrial estate in the middle of the night, there's not a lot you can do with that time at 2am with everything else closed, nothing around except warehouses, and no transport, and it's not particularly enjoyable or restful.
But yeah it is disgraceful.
N gets a 20 minute break plus a 5 minute cigarette break (which he has to sign in and out for because they don't want people "taking the piss")
Mind you, I'm not sure he'd want a longer break stuck out on an industrial estate in the middle of the night, there's not a lot you can do with that time at 2am with everything else closed, nothing around except warehouses, and no transport, and it's not particularly enjoyable or restful.
But yeah it is disgraceful.
Throbbing Angel
uncivilly servile
Aye - this - on both - wank isn't it? Especially when there are eejit customers added into the mix too.
sim667
All aboard the 303 bus.
Can confirm, I get 30 mins in a 12 hour shift, but with overruns that’s often a 13-14 hour shift.
We’re supposed to get 2 x 20 min breaks and 1 x 30 min breaks, but the 20 min breaks are at discretion of despatch and disturbable for jobs, so basically I get one of those 20 mins breaks about once or twice a year.
sim667
All aboard the 303 bus.
Your making out that the time in the attending seat whilst being driven around is some kind of “break” it isn’t, most of the time it’s finishing paperwork, safeguarding, communicating with TL’s or dispatchers, or looking up stuff on JRCALC on the way to a job, not to mention being a second pair of eyes for the driver or catching up with policy, hospital criteria changes or generic random dictats from management. If you’re single crewed on an SRV you don’t even get the luxury of attending seat time, you drive and attend every single job. Our trust is even trying to push for us not to be sent to station to be stood down for meal break now and want the ability to stand us down for meal break sitting in the vehicle with no access to facilities.
Whilst waiting for handover actually most of the time we’re helping hospital staff move patients, get trolleys, monitoring patients…… so no, that’s not even really standby is it?
Last edited:
StoneRoad
heckling from the back!
sim667 - think that explains one of the reasons I got a couple of ambulance crews holed up for breaks at a railway station a few decades ago - at the time, there was no landline, no mobile phone and almost no radio signal so no communications; I had an internal phone line to the railway's controller if I ever needed the emergency services. [it does have some mobile service now]
The crews had attended the station for a number of incidents previously - the main two I remember were an elderly female that had broken the head of her femur in a fall, the other was a guy who had smacked his head and got a long cut on his scalp as a result.
The local police would also come up to the station to do paperwork & drink coffee ...
The crews had attended the station for a number of incidents previously - the main two I remember were an elderly female that had broken the head of her femur in a fall, the other was a guy who had smacked his head and got a long cut on his scalp as a result.
The local police would also come up to the station to do paperwork & drink coffee ...
sim667
All aboard the 303 bus.
20 years ago standby was much more of a thing. We have people at work who tell us they used to do nightshifts and would get maybe one job, then sleep and pretty much get a full nights kip…… I think really only the fire service get that now. Normally on nights we’re fucked, it’s not uncommon to get a category 1 call with a 45 minute run time on a night (it’s meant to be 7 minute response), the police are even worse, they’ll often have 6 or 7 category 1 calls and no one to assign at all, often at weeks, particularly with a full moon.
But we do also have roadside standby points on the rare occasion there aren’t outstanding jobs, so you might find where they were sitting were roadside standby points. The idea of this is to provide better coverage of assets for when calls do come in. However I would argue forcing people to sit in a vehicle with no access to facilities is terrible for staff welfare and morale, which generally speaking isn’t great in emergency services anyway…..
GarveyLives
Well-Known Member
I am fairly sure that many people would not have realised that such a practice was legal (even those subject to it).
The best person with whom to raise concerns about the employment practices of this particular employer is probably the Chief Executive Officer of Caffè Nero UK, Will Stratton-Morris (formerly British Airways, Walt Disney World and SSE Plc):
(Source: Leeds University Business School / Caffè Nero UK)
As it happens, Will Stratton-Morris will be addressing his former alma mater, Leeds University Business School, as part of their "flagship event series, Corporate Wisdom", on Monday 20 May 2024. No doubt, many people in the locality will wish to debate the "Corporate Wisdom" of Caffè Nero UK's employment practices with him.
Alternatively, those concerned with the desirability of Caffè Nero UK's employment practices as revealed in this thread can simply write direct to Will Stratton-Morris at:
willsm@caffenero.com
Hopefully, Will Stratton-Morris will join the forum and respond direct to the concerns raised in this thread.
StoneRoad
heckling from the back!
hmmmmm ...
am I right in remembering that those pesky murchats are now touting for cafe nero [although the "free drinks / other things" that they are promoting are somewhat limited] ?
If they are, then I think that's another reason not to buy there.
I tend to support local & independent cafes / coffee shops as much as I can, especially as I can't stand costa's tar / bilge water.
am I right in remembering that those pesky murchats are now touting for cafe nero [although the "free drinks / other things" that they are promoting are somewhat limited] ?
If they are, then I think that's another reason not to buy there.
I tend to support local & independent cafes / coffee shops as much as I can, especially as I can't stand costa's tar / bilge water.
krtek a houby
Sail hatin'
Worked agency gigs decades ago, and one place would not even have a 20 minute break.
We was told to go and "get the teas in" after several hours "come back immediately" and to work for another several hrs without even a 5 minute cig break.
Ended up walking out on the fuckers.
We was told to go and "get the teas in" after several hours "come back immediately" and to work for another several hrs without even a 5 minute cig break.
Ended up walking out on the fuckers.
A380
How do I change this 'custom title' thing then?
Old bill don’t get any entitlement for breaks. They work a nominal 40 not 37 hour week in terms of the hours used for working out shift patterns. So they have no entitlement to any ‘refs’ (refreshment) breaks. So if they get to eat or drink away from the car it’s a bonus.
Add to this that in every force every six months or so some bright spark senior rozzer -who did three days patrol ten years ago before heading into the ivory tower of HQ and desperately wants more bling on their shoulders - will come up with an initiative that in the event cops do get time to eat on a 9,10 or 12 hour patrol shift they should eat in a public restaurant to ‘improve visibility and public reassurance’ because what every dibblle wants after 7 hours of sorting out other people’s shit with another five to go is sitting in a Maccie Ds trying to catch up with paperwork with people constantly coming up and be saying ‘I pay your wages, it’s a disgrace you are wasting tax payers money eating on duty time’ and similar .
Apparently.
krtek a houby
Sail hatin'
Fuck the police
Similar threads
