No paid breaks, no coffee breaks, 1/2 hour unpaid lunch (which means working 8 1/2 hours to get paid for 8). I’ve developed the habit of drinking gallons of water at work because the only breaks I get are bathroom breaks. Not legal in Alberta, but nobody seems to be regulating the temp industry. I would say more, but I have to go rant about temp working conditions now 
I know it doesn’t always work out, I’m just pointing out how it is where I am.
Sue Friendly-if you’ve got minors-hell yes it is worth it for fifteen minutes. BECAUSE…if someone finds out, your employee is going to have some major fines coming.
Personally, a break in the middle of a shift is just common sense-let the people take a minute to have something to eat and rest up so they can work more productively.
Holly-they work you without pay?
HOW on earth do people get away with this!
Uh, Sue, this is not a “to the letter” type of thing. If somebody works a certain number of hours, they are entitled, by a law which state boards of labor, and most sensible people, take very seriously. By routinely violating these law, which, I must repeat, are not minor, your company faces both lawsuits and various sanctions by your state’s labor relations board.
Former “permanent temp”* hospital drone checking in (medical records dept.):
We supposedly had paid breaks and always available unpaid lunch. In fact we were required to take them. Of course, if it was the weekend, and you were alone, did you? Of course not. In fact, if you were alone, you to continue working over your unpaid lunch as well (supposedly, such a worker would be paid for the extra half hour. I never was).
But that was only one of many complaints about that job…
BTW Necros, if you had the job security of a redshirt on Star Trek (TOS), would you complain about a missed break?
*“permanent temp” was a title that appeared once on a work schedule. Someone must have thought it to NewSpeakish and changed it to “permanent hourly”
labdude:
I’m afraid to say which hospital, even though I don’t work there anymore (too many urinary tract infections and I lost 30 pounds) but it’s in the Texas panhandle.
Guinastasia:
They get away with it because the director told us, “You must take your breaks!” even though she knew it was impossible to do so. Her ass was thus covered. Theoretically, if we feel we’re overworked, we’re supposed to file complaints. Of course, filing a complaint is a good way to get fired very quickly. There are always other nurses to take one’s place.
At the other major hospital here a few years ago, the nurses tried to get unionized. This effort was deflated when every single nurse who was overheard mentioning the word, ‘union’ was mysteriously fired on ‘unrelated’ charges.
Once, when the workload was clearly dangerous to our patients due to severe understaffing, we refused to take report. We explained that we’d go out on the floor and work, but we couldn’t assume responsibility under such conditions (this meant that the shift before us couldn’t leave, or they’d lose their licenses for patient abandonment). In fact, if you take on an assignment that you feel you can’t reasonably do, you can lose your nursing license pronto. Instead of increasing staffing to a safe level, our director instead wrote up every one of us. Therefore, none of us got a raise that year.
Soon, that dangerous level of understaffing became routine and no one dared complain anymore. I left largely because I didn’t see much point in placing myself in danger of losing my license, being the target of a lawsuit, or killing myself (or someone else) for much less money than I made when I waited tables.
Holy crow, was that a labor violation! Fired for mentioning unions?
Sheesh, no wonder people complain about big business!
I become a bitch at Kmart if I don’t get my breaks. I know, I know, but with all the crap they give me, I’ll be damned if I’m going to let any little issue slide.
When I was in retail management, I routinely allowed people to “take their breaks at the end of a shift.” (Of course I only allowed it if we had adequate coverage on the floor at that time and if they were working a short enough shift that they didn’t really need a break in the middle.) Usually they asked me at the beginning of their shift if they could do this. They would leave 15 minutes early, and I would punch them out at the official end of their shift. I considered it a favor to my employees.
But, in the case you described, the worker lied on her time sheet. She said that she left at 5:00 when she really left at 4:30. If her supervisor had said it was okay to write down the wrong time, then that would be one thing. But she took it upon herself to do this without his approval. She should not have been paid for that half-hour.
Besides, “clocking out” at 5:00 was clearly “adding 1/2 hour to her time for a skipped break.”
I think she is in the wrong here. I do concur, though, that the employee manual should be made clearer.