Rule Would Threaten Right to Lunch Break, Activists Say

Labor leaders and a Democratic lawmaker accused the Schwarzenegger administration Tuesday of trying to undermine workers’ right to a lunch break, but state officials said a proposed change in labor regulations would only provide flexibility in scheduling workplace meals.

Emergency regulations issued by the administration Friday would allow employers to get around a legal requirement that says employees must not work more than five hours without getting a half-hour meal break.

The new rules, which need approval from the Office of Administrative Law to take effect, would allow lunch breaks after the start of the sixth hour of work if employees were given the option of an earlier meal time.

“Basically all it does is widen the window in which a lunch period can be taken,” said Rick Rice, a spokesman for the Labor and Workforce Development Agency.

But Art Pulaski, executive secretary treasurer of the California Labor Federation, said the regulations were drafted in a way to help employers eliminate the meal break requirement.

The changes also would allow the employer and employee to waive a second meal break by mutual consent during an extended workday.

Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger vetoed legislation in September that would have allowed unions and management in the transportation industry to negotiate contracts that provided meal periods that began after six hours of work, saying the bill didn’t go far enough and that regulations were needed to eliminate confusion about meal-break requirements in “almost all industries.”