First Meal Period. Non-exempt employees who are employed for a work period of more than five (5) hours per day are provided and encouraged to take a fully relieved, uninterrupted, unpaid meal period of not less than 30 consecutive minutes that will commence no later than the end of the fifth (5th) hour of work, except that if the total work period per day of the employee is no more than six (6) hours, the meal period may be waived by mutual consent of both the Company and employee. You may revoke any such waiver at any time, orally or in writing. The Company will do nothing to dissuade or discourage an employee from taking a meal period. Employees are required to clock-in and clock-out for all meal periods.
Second Meal Period. Non-exempt employees who are employed for a work period of more than ten (10) hours per day will be provided and encouraged to take a fully relieved, uninterrupted, second unpaid meal period of not less than 30 consecutive minutes that will commence no later than the end of the tenth (10th) hour of work, except that if the total hours worked is no more than twelve (12) hours per day, the second meal period may be waived by mutual consent of both the Company and employee only if the first meal period was not waived. You may revoke any such waiver at any time, orally or in writing.
Off-Duty Meal Periods. Non-exempt employees are relieved of all duties during the meal periods. Employees are off-duty and not required to monitor, answer or respond to work-related calls, emails, text messages, pages, or other employer inquiries during their meal periods. Employees are free to leave the Company premises during their meal period. You may not add your rest period(s) to your meal period so that you can take a longer meal period.
Unpaid Meal Periods. Meal periods are unpaid which means employees must clock out at the start of a meal period and clock in at the end of a meal period. If a timeclock is not readily available for an employee to clock in and out for meal periods, the employee must accurately record the time the meal period begins and ends and accurately report the beginning and ending time of each meal period in the timekeeping system. Employees will be provided with sufficient time to perform any necessary conclusory and/or preparatory activities before and/or after the meal period. Employees must be on-the-clock while performing all conclusory and/or preparatory activities before and/or after the meal period. Conclusory and preparatory activities may include changing in and out of your uniform and/or safety equipment, washing up, cooling down or warming up machinery and/or equipment, putting away or collecting equipment, tools, or material, and/or traveling from and to the work station to the time clock.
Report Missed or Interrupted Meal Period(s). The Company will do nothing to dissuade or discourage an employee from taking an off-duty meal period. If for any reason you are not able to take your meal period, you must advise your supervisor or the Human Resources Manager in writing within the same or next payroll period; it will otherwise be presumed that you were provided all your meal periods. You must complete the form entitled “Employee Time Record Notice” immediately and submit it to the Human Resources Manager whenever meal periods were not provided in accordance with the above policy. If the Company fails to provide an employee any meal period in accordance with this policy or applicable law, the Company will pay the employee one (1) hour of pay at the employee’s regular rate of compensation for each work day that the meal period was not provided.
Failure to comply with this policy may subject employees – including supervisors – to disciplinary action, up to and including termination of employment.