Lunch Lapse
Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger backed down from plans to endorse an emergency measure that would change the rules regarding when workers must take a lunch break. Current law requires that employees take lunch by the fifth hour of work. The measure, proposed by the Department of Industrial Relations, would have amended that to require that employees take lunch before the sixth hour of work. The measure also would have limited an employee’s deadline to make claims regarding lunch break violations to one year as well as the ability to recover attorneys’ fees and large monetary awards. Hearings regarding the changes in the measure will be held over the next 120 days in Los Angeles, San Francisco and Fresno.
