Restaurants often violate meal-break provisions
The Department of Labor's (DOL) Wage and Hour Division recently launched efforts to crackdown on labor rights violations. In particular, the division has targeted the restaurant industry, which is often a source of non-compliant payroll practices due to the combination of tipped and non-tipped employee who fall under different Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) provisions.
The Wage and Hour Division announced it would begin random investigations of restaurants in Portland, Oregon, reporting that 80 percent of employers across the industry were found to be non-compliant with the FLSA between 2006 and 2011. One major problem is a failure to provide adequate break times that are required by law.
Meal and rest breaks are slightly harder to navigate because they vary state by state. In Oregon, for example, businesses must provide workers with a 30 minute break for shifts between six and eight hours long. The break must be between the second and fifth hours if the shift is seven hours or less, while it must be between the third and sixth hours if it is longer than seven hours.
In restaurants, where tipped employees are usually expected to work on the floor throughout their shift, the employer must offer a collective bargaining agreement to waive the breaks and instead allow the workers to eat on the clock, according to the Department Journal of Commerce Oregon.
These terms may sound complicated, but employers are often using advanced payroll processing systems that can alert managers of any scheduling practices that could trigger an FLSA violation.
The Wage and Hour Division announced it would begin random investigations of restaurants in Portland, Oregon, reporting that 80 percent of employers across the industry were found to be non-compliant with the FLSA between 2006 and 2011. One major problem is a failure to provide adequate break times that are required by law.
Meal and rest breaks are slightly harder to navigate because they vary state by state. In Oregon, for example, businesses must provide workers with a 30 minute break for shifts between six and eight hours long. The break must be between the second and fifth hours if the shift is seven hours or less, while it must be between the third and sixth hours if it is longer than seven hours.
In restaurants, where tipped employees are usually expected to work on the floor throughout their shift, the employer must offer a collective bargaining agreement to waive the breaks and instead allow the workers to eat on the clock, according to the Department Journal of Commerce Oregon.
These terms may sound complicated, but employers are often using advanced payroll processing systems that can alert managers of any scheduling practices that could trigger an FLSA violation.
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