Posted on February 28th, 2019
Full transcript of the video is below:
Hi, everyone. I just got back from the Labor Board, a Labor Board hearing.
It compelled me to make this video because of the problems we had there.
The client that had a maintenance company, and he had a separate truck where he was having one of his employees that was a supervisor, well, supposed to be a supervisor, anyway, doing other jobs.
There are two trucks.
One truck doing some of the maintenance and another truck doing maintenance somewhere else.
He was claiming overtime, double time, not getting his meal breaks, not getting his 10-minute breaks.
It was fairly easy to prove that he didn’t do any overtime or any double time because it’s just simple math.
However, we ran into a problem with meal breaks and 10-minute breaks.
It just made me think of how important it is for employers to make sure that they’re tracking all of this stuff.
He basically just said, “I wasn’t allowed to take any of my meal or 10 minutes breaks.”
And said, it was the owner of the company that didn’t allow it.
Since it wasn’t tracked, I think, in the decision, that’s probably where we’re going to have our problem. It’s really important, first of all, to have a policy specifically for meal breaks and specifically for the 10-minute breaks in California, and then a way to log them.
Either you keep track of them with a punch in/punch out type of system.
And, not for the 10-minute breaks, but for the lunch breaks, a punch in/punch out system.
If that’s not practical, for example in this case where they’re on third-party sites, then at least have a log sheet that they’re required to fill out and turn into you weekly, so that you can prove that they received their breaks.
Now, California law doesn’t require you to track 10-minute breaks, but as long as you’re tracking the lunch breaks, track the 10 minute breaks too because why even have to deal with proving that you gave them their 10 minute breaks.
If it’s right there in writing, they have it dated, and they have it signed saying, yes, I took these breaks, then there’s no question whatsoever.
Hopefully, the Labor Board will rule in our favor, but if they don’t, it could potentially be a quite a lot of liability when you’re talking about three years of employment and this guy claiming that he didn’t have a single lunch break or a single 10 minute break in the three years that he worked.
Thanks, everybody.
John Fagerholm from defendmybiz.com.
See you on the next video.
