California's 5 Hour Lunch Rule

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Hello Fellow nurses from California,

I have a question. There is an issue going on in my hospital at the moment and I wanted to find out how you guys were handling it in your facilities.

There is a labor law in California which states an employee must take their meal break (30 minutes) before the end of the 5th hour of work.

Are you guys following that rule in your hospitals. What is happening at my hospital is the following:

They are asking all nurses to start their breaks as early as 9am or 9pm. We all know that is almost impossible to take a lunch in the first four hours of work. That is when assessments, meds, admissions, and treatments happen.

In some instances, we have been told to start taking our breaks at 0730... which is absurd. We haven't even assessed our patients by then.

As an example, we have a unit that has a core of 8 nurses. that is four hours of lunch breaks, we have no choice to start breaks at 0730 or 0800. Management and HR is telling us that we can voluntarily decline to take a lunch that early (and put it in writing), but that means you have the chance of not taking a lunch break at all if it get's busy. But hey... that's ok because we have 3 15 minute breaks which we all take right? :sarcastic:

Are any of you guys experiencing this issue?

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Specializes in Emergency Department.

Absent a valid collective bargaining agreement, your employer is supposed to have you all start your lunch before the 5th hour, but you can defer it to the 6th hour if such an agreement is in writing, however you may NOT go past that 6th hour without taking a lunch. Things get even more nuts when/if you don't have sufficient staffing to take breaks/lunches without exceeding the ratios...

Also, they know about what they're supposed to pay the employee for missed breaks and lunches. They're doing what they're supposed to so they can avoid having to pay for those missed breaks and lunches.

Please note I didn't say that it was nice...

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Specializes in Leadership, Psych, HomeCare, Amb. Care.

8 nurses and 2 can't go at once?

15 minute interval starts, 11am-12 45 pm start times, although even a 1pm is probably legal.

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Two can't go at the same time because there is no one to cover their patients. If that happens, it means that one nurse would go out of ratio 8:1 for 15 minutes or 30 minutes (we are a telemetry unit). The hospital has already had issues with DHS about going out of ratio. DHS said we can't even go out of ratio for 15 minutes.

We have no breaker nurse and the charge nurse can only relieve one at a time.

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Specializes in ICU.

Australia has a similar rule, but we don't say is must be a lunch break, it's just a "break", so usually morning tea, which we start around 8.30, then start lunches around 12. We've never had an issue.

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Specializes in Emergency Department.
Two can't go at the same time because there is no one to cover their patients. If that happens, it means that one nurse would go out of ratio 8:1 for 15 minutes or 30 minutes (we are a telemetry unit). The hospital has already had issues with DHS about going out of ratio. DHS said we can't even go out of ratio for 15 minutes.

We have no breaker nurse and the charge nurse can only relieve one at a time.

Then given the situation, they're likely doing the only legal thing they can to satisfy maintaining ratios while also meeting their requirements for breaks and lunches. They may have weighed the cost of adding a break nurse against the cost of fines for ratio violations and missed breaks/meal periods and found that they come out ahead with their current staffing.

Not saying that they actually did the "bean counting" but it's certainly possible.

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Then given the situation, they're likely doing the only legal thing they can to satisfy maintaining ratios while also meeting their requirements for breaks and lunches. They may have weighed the cost of adding a break nurse against the cost of fines for ratio violations and missed breaks/meal periods and found that they come out ahead with their current staffing.

Not saying that they actually did the "bean counting" but it's certainly possible.

It's definitely a cost saving issue. The entire year has been driven by cost saving techniques and what can we do ti save money.

It is just very frustrating when we just clocked in at 0700 and management tells us to go to lunch at 0800.

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This is the first I've heard of this. In the past, I've been told that working over five hours made the breaks necessary, by law, but no one ever said when I had to take the breaks. This exception though: could combine my breaks in the middle of the shift for a super break (night shift nap) at a couple of places, but could not save the breaks until the end of the shift in order to leave early.

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I was wondering if you work an eight or twelve hour shift? When you were hired did you agree to an alternative work schedule (somewhat common for california nurses)? Are you an independent hospital? If not, how are other hospitals in your chain handling the breaks for their nurses?

Where I work, in CA, the twelve hour nurses typically begin their 30min lunches at the six hour mark of the shift. We have done this for years and have never been dinged by the state, but we do sign an AWS when we are hired.

It sounds like someone up the food chain is having a knee-jerk reaction - the nurses should draft a firm letter to the DON stating the reasons a lunch break right at beginning of shift is unsafe for patient care.

good luck!

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I was wondering if you work an eight or twelve hour shift? When you were hired did you agree to an alternative work schedule (somewhat common for california nurses)? Are you an independent hospital? If not, how are other hospitals in your chain handling the breaks for their nurses?

Where I work, in CA, the twelve hour nurses typically begin their 30min lunches at the six hour mark of the shift. We have done this for years and have never been dinged by the state, but we do sign an AWS when we are hired.

It sounds like someone up the food chain is having a knee-jerk reaction - the nurses should draft a firm letter to the DON stating the reasons a lunch break right at beginning of shift is unsafe for patient care.

good luck!

Thank you, we are all 12 hour shifts. My hospital is a chain hospital, I'm in the process of doing the research to see how the rest of the facilities are doing this.

I have heard of a waiver that Police and Fire department use so they don't have to take their breaks so early. I also believe is a knee jerk response to a resent audit by the Labor Board.

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Specializes in ICU/PACU.

So you aren't getting your 3 mini breaks? How do you take an AM break if you are going to lunch at 0800?

We have 12 plus nurses in our unit. Start lunch at 1100-1330. So goal is everyone is done with lunches by 1400. We have a resource and a charge nurse on most days. We do an AM break, then 2 afternoon breaks.

I know resource nurse isn't in your budget, but hopefully your hospital will get fined and forced into putting in their budget. If you are covering anyone for lunch or your short breaks, it's against CA nurse/pt ratio laws. Report them. Good luck. Also I think it's against CA law not to give you an AM break before your lunch break.

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Specializes in Med-Surg, NICU.

I would hate that. I usually like to take my lunch break on 1300-1330. 11-1230 is too early for me!

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