Video Description
Hi, I'm Innessa Huot and I'm an employment attorney.
Generally, you have to be paid for all of your time worked, and that includes the time you spent working through your lunch break. Now, if you have a completely uninterrupted lunch break where you can leave the premises, run your own errands, even take a nap if you want to, then no, employers do not have to pay you for that time. But what we see happen pretty frequently is that workers get busy, customers come in, they have to take care of patients, they have to complete paperwork, or something else comes up that disrupts their lunch. Now, if this happens on a pretty consistent basis, then employers are not allowed to automatically deduct that mealtime or that time that they've allocated towards your lunch break. If you often work through your lunch and you're not getting paid for it, then you may have claims for these wages and sometimes even overtime, going back three to six years, depending on what state you work in.
Give us a call and we'll walk you through this, so that you can learn more about your rights. Thank you for watching.