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The fact that you guys only have 30 minutes to eat is insane! We have 1:30 hours by law and It's barely enough time to go down, get something and eat. Even if you eat fast food (which we don't like) you won't be able to go there, buy, eat and be back in 30. You need a revolution!
Yeah well we can't all be French. I'm not saying it's a good thing, but 30 minutes is standard even in Europe.
30 is common, but I wouldn't say standard. An hour a day feels standard.
In office work, you usually get it all in one chunk, whereas if you work physically demanding or shift-based work, you get 15 minutes coffee break, then at lunch 30 minutes, then another 15 minutes later. This is true at least for all the western European countries.
What I noticed is that often it's "30 minutes lunch with 7:30 of work time, for a total of 8 hours at work", or "1 hour lunch with 8 hours of work time, for a total of 9 hours at work".
In Germany it's dependent on the work hours and type of physical activity, for me it's:
<6 hours, no break (for adults)
~~6-8 hours, 30 minutes break
8-10 hours, 45 minutes break
>10 hours, 1 hour~~
6-9 hours, 30 minutes
>9 hours, 45 minutes
With breaks being a minimum of 15 minutes at a time, and you're not allowed to work workout breaks for more than 6 hours at a time.
if you have a job where you have to concentrate a lot (assembly lines, bus/truck drivers, air traffic controllers) these times change a lot, sometimes down to like 1 hour maximum continuous work and then 15-30 minutes of break time.
EDIT: @zaphod@sopuli.xyz was right, Source (in German)
In Germany it's 45 minutes break if you work more than 9 hours.
At least in Finland the 30 minutes is meant to be 30 minutes sitting down and eating your food. If your place of work has a shared cafeteria people are meant to eat lunch in, getting from your desk to the cafeteria and back, and queueing for your food aren't meant to be part of the lunch break. Only the part you actually spend eating and thus properly on a break.
It's a bit of a spirit of the law thing, though the law is quite exact on the matter. Good luck trying to find an employer outside desk jobs who actually abide by it, though, as factory jobs are scheduled around 20 or 30 minute breaks and if you're not back at your line by then, production halts. Luckily that fact is typically compensated in the pay.
I'd assume other European countries with 30 minute lunch have a similar clause.
All I want to add here is that I fell completeley in love with france over just two weeks working at a customer's site there.
Man fuck that. If you bring something from home half an hour is perfectly fine. I can't imagine having to just wait an otherhour around so that I can finish my 8 hours. I want spent my time at home and not on break at work.
Ehh I'm satisfied with 30 minutes to heat up or otherwise prepare my lunch. I'd want a sofa to sleep on if my break was any longer than that.
In Denmark, 30 minutes and catered food in a cafeteria is pretty standard. No one goes out to lunch.
I'd rather stick with 30 minutes and get off work early, mind you.
We had an HR person complaining to us that a group of us would leave the office every day and go out together to eat lunch.
Didn't complain that we spent too long eating. Just that we went out together for lunch every day....
Hi Brenda,
I wanted to reach out regarding a small observation I made in your last email. In telling me how to spend 30 minute meal break and encouraging me to cut it short for the company's benefit, you violated US labor law.
Let's correct this behavior and try to be more mindful of that "our company is not above the law" spirit so we can keep your momentum going in the right direction. :-)
Eric
P. S. I will be retaining this communication in case this remains an issue. Thanks :-)
See, the people that do this shit are well trained though. Brenda didn’t demand that he work during lunch and was in fact clear that he was within his rights to not. Instead, Brenda has simply suggested that it would look better and he would conform better if he worked some unpaid time.
They know how to skirt the law. They can still go fuck themselves though, the gaslighting assholes.
She did also say "correct this behaviour" which is the corpo way of saying "do it or else"
Even here in Texas, I've learned that "let's correct this behavior" can be shown as evidence that you received threats of a personal improvement plan
Corpo language is corpo language for a reason though: it is legally safe to deploy. Intent is so very very hard to litigate.
No that's not a "safe" way to say this. It's a pretty god damn clear demand
Doesn't "correct this behavior" very directly imply that the current behavior (in this case, taking your full lunch break) is incorrect and therefore in need of correction, though?
It's one thing to suggest something, but calling it a "correction" changes things, I'd think.
If you were in a jury box and were shown just this message and a note about how he was fired two months later for "not being a team player" you'd infer the intent and vote to hold the company liable for wrongful termination.
Corpospeak keeps a "work through lunch" message from being a self-evident labor law violation even if no adverse action occurrrd. They don't disguise intent if those later bad actions occur
Ianal but "voluntarily" taking a shorter lunch break is still illegal in some states. In my state, my boss would get in trouble if it could be proven that they knew I wasn't taking the full, mandatory 30 minutes.
And that's why you retain the email. Establishing a pattern makes the specific language less important, although in this case there's a pretty clear implication that the employee will be punished for using their full meal break.
So, if you get the lawyers involved, things could go very bad. BUT, I'll bet if you let enough labor lawyers read this, at least one of them will take the case under terms that you might want to accept.
IANAL, TINLA, but I agree with the other posters that this could be a violation of federal regulations. (But, there's a lot of details I cannot glean from the posting that could affect legality.)
I'd expect there needs to be actual damages first. So you have to say no and then get fired, and then you have a case.
Though if it's heading that way, a lawyer may want to help you prep to seal the case as it's being made.
I've sat through a lot of depositions in employment cases, and the best thing a potential plaintiff can do is maintain documents and a timeline.
But yeah, this email by itself is nothing. Personally, a simple "Thanks, Brenda" would've been my response, because it leaves a lot to interpretation.
Hello, Brenda. I have noticed that your mouth is often filled with strange looking hairs, possibly from all the rimming you give the boss. Let's correct this behavior for the family
Oh, man. She almost got through it but she just couldn't hold herself back from saying "Let's correct this behavior" near the end! Fucking boomers (I'm assuming), nothing will keep them from speaking their minds...
NAL, but my understanding is that actually instructing a subordinate to return to work during their legal-mandated by OSHA "30-minute uninterrupted lunch break" is where they really have no excuse and the company is now liable...
legal-mandated by OSHA "30-minute uninterrupted lunch break"
Not a thing. No US law requires work breaks. The majority of states don't either.
"support your work family"
RUN AWAY!
That was the first thing that jumped out. If anyone said that to me, I would be sending out resumes during that 30 minute break.
"It really doesn't look good for you to take your break during your break time, so please avoid taking breaks during your break."
-- Someone that clearly hasn't worked in a while
Cool, so since I only took 20 minutes for lunch, I'll be heading home 40 minutes earlier.