Clocking Out For Lunch

[Alo]

In Massachusetts a half hour lunch break is required to be offered for six hours of work.  This can be waived in writing by the employee.  This is what I understand.

What if there is nothing in writing and the employee does not clock out for lunch?  Is the employer required to pay the individual for that half hour or can they deduct an half hour from the time clock?

[Latimer]

I do not know about a waiver that the employee can waive their lunch hour.  It may be, but I could not find any reference to it on the Massachusetts Department of Labor website.

What I did find was that an employee must be relieved from all duty during the lunch hour in order for it to be an unpaid lunch hour.

This tells me you cannot just deduct a lunch hour from the employee's wages. If they work the lunch hour they must be paid for the work. If your policy says they must take a lunch hour than it should apply to all employees and you could than discipline the ones that did not take a lunch hour for not following policy.

If you would like to find out about the waiver I would contact your nearest Massachusetts Department of Labor.

The website with all the information is at:http://www.mass.gov/?pageID=elwdhomepage&L=1&L0=Home&sid=Elwd

The main contact is :

Department of Labor Contact Information

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For questions regarding Labor issues, please call the Dept. of Labor at 617-626-7100.

Our office is located at:

1 Ashburton Place

Room 2112

Boston, MA 02108

Shirley