It is a common argument by plaintiff’s counsel in wage and hour class actions: The employer’s policy that requires the employee to remain on the company premises during 10-minute rest breaks facially violates California law. Because the employer has a facially invalid rest break policy, it is a company wide policy that is uniform, and
By Veenita Raj and Anthony Zaller
It is a common argument by plaintiff’s counsel in wage and hour class actions: The employer’s policy that requires the employee to remain on the company premises during 10-minute rest breaks facially violates California law. Therefore, because the employer has a facially invalid rest break policy, it is a
In Rodriguez v. Taco Bell Corp., 896 F.3d 952 (9th Cir. 2018), an employee brought a putative class action alleging that Taco Bell’s discounted meal policy effectively denied employees the ability to take a duty free meal break. At issue in this case was Taco Bell’s policy of offering a discounted meal from the
Cheesecake Factory restaurants in Southern California were cited for $4.57 million for wage and hour violations and penalties by the Labor Commissioner earlier this week. What may come as a surprise to many is that the citation was based on alleged wage violations for employees of contractors hired by Cheesecake Factory, not its own employees.
California Labor Code section 226.7 provides that employees are entitled to receive premium wages in the form of one additional hour of pay at the employee’s regular rate of pay for a missed meal or rest break.
An employee who works more than three and one-half hours per day must be permitted to take a
In speaking to a few groups of California employers this week, a common question kept coming up about what are the essential 
employment policies California employers must have? While there are more than five, this week’s Friday’s Five starts with what I consider to be critical policies that every California must have in place.
1.
Welcome to another Friday’s Five video. In this video I discuss five things every California employer needs to know about meal and rest breaks. The items consists of a some reminders, but also new court decisions issued in December 2016 and the first quarter of 2017. This is always a topic employers need to
Quick video on the five things California employers need to pay attention to in 2017.
(Sorry for the wind noise in the video.)
I briefly discuss the following five issues:
1) Augustus v. ABM Security Services: A new California Supreme Court decision about whether rest breaks during which security guards were required to