Be it enacted by the Youth Model Legislature of the State of New Jersey that employers must grant a period of at least 30 minutes during an employee’s work day as a break period. This period may be a person’s lunch break or any other 30 minute break during the work day. This includes workers contracted or not contracted that are 18 or older.
|
Section I:
|
Businesses must provide, at minimum, a 30 minute lunch period to all employees, where once it was only required for those under the age of 18. As for how long the duration of this break may last after the minimum 30 minutes ends is up entirely to the business.
|
|
Section II:
|
The time given to an employee for his/her lunch break is counted as a part
of his/her work day and as such guarantees that the employee is still earning a salary during that time.
|
|
Section III:
|
The period of time newly designated as a “lunch break” is really just an off period so that if an employee does not work a shift (consisting of at least 5 hours) during the normal “lunch” time, he/she is still entitled to a paid break of at least 30 minutes.
|
|
Section IV:
|
Although the employer is mandated to offer the employee the break time, since it is a new portion of time added to the employees day, he/she can opt not to take the break. Consequently, if he/she does choose to take this break, the period of time that is taken counts towards a day’s total amount of work hours. For instance, if a work day consists of working from 9AM to 5PM, taking a 30 minute break at 12PM counts the same as working normally for that 30 minutes.
|
|
Section V:
|
Employees may choose to divide up the break time to which they are now
allocated. How the time is broken up does not matter, nor does it matter
if the employee completes the whole allotted time period either. Being
that this new break period is optional, the employee can choose to take none of it, all of it, or any amount of time in between.
|
|
Section VI:
|
Businesses found not to offer the newly allocated break period are subject to a fine of no less than $100 and no more than $500.
|
| |
|
|
| Statement of Intent: The purpose of this Bill is to give all workers an option to take a paid break during their work days, reducing the possible stress of a full day with no guaranteed break periods for a lunch.
Effective Date: This Bill shall take effect November 1st, 2010
Financial Statement: This bill will not require funds to operate. Employers will have to pay employees for the time spent on break but that requires no outside compensation.
|
* Primary Sponsor |
| Download PDF Version |
|
