Right to work states and breaks

[Scott5114]

Oklahoma is a right-to-work, at-will employment state. As far as I know, Oklahoma law does not require that employees get any breaks at all. However, it is company policy in every company I've worked for to provide at least a lunch break. Not giving breaks isn't very conducive to keeping employees around for the long term.

Where I work now, I work 36 hours a week and get two fifteen minute breaks and a thirty minute break, all paid. Some of my coworkers work 40 hours a week, but their lunches are unpaid, so they're actually at work for 42½ hours.

I think the fairest way to do it would be to not require breaks, because in some jobs it is operationally impossible to ensure that breaks are going to happen (e.g. in a fast food restaurant it can get extremely busy and there's just no time). But, to ensure that employers only do this when it's really needed, they should have to pay 3× normal pay for the time that would have been spent on break.

[kkt]

It's funny, fast food seems to me to be the perfect example of where it should be fairly easy to hire enough people to give breaks.  Getting extra pay isn't really the point, it's having a chance to decompress, use the bathroom, make a phone call, whatever.  It makes a safer, happier workplace if people get their breaks.

I'd see the more problematic case as a very quiet workplace that could easily be run by 1 person all day if it weren't for the need to provide breaks.

[Scott5114]

It is theoretically possible, but a big part of fast food management is keeping labor costs down. When I worked at Burger King, our goal was to keep labor cost at or below 15% of total gross sales for the day. It can be a lot harder than it seems. (Ever wonder why a lot of drive-thrus never have anyone running the first window? That's why.)

That and it can be challenging to schedule breaks when rushes happen at odd times. Say it's normally a slow time and you're about to start sending people on break when a school bus rolls in. If you keep sending people on break, then you're going to end up with orders backed up and 20+ minute wait times. While the bus is there you also have oblivious people crowding through the drive-thru, which is running slow because the cooks are working on the bus orders. After you get the bus cleared out, it might be time for one of your 'regular' rushes to start, so there just isn't a good time to send someone on break.

[vdeane]

Functionally speaking, though, if you are paying dues to a union, and represented by it, you are for all intents and purposes a member whether you have officially joined or not. So mandatory union membership being illegal is rather meaningless.

Technically, there's a distinction between agency fees and union dues; if working in a union-represented job, you can be compelled to pay an agency fee for the union's negotiation of your salary and work conditions, but you are not obliged to help subsidize any other activities of the union by joining and paying union dues (such as its political activities).

Nonetheless most unions have found sufficiently creative approaches to their accounting to ensure that the agency fee represents the vast majority of the union dues, so the incentives for not joining the union are minimal (and likely largely ideological, i.e. due to a disagreement with the union or its leadership, or collective bargaining in general) compared to the selective incentives union members get that agency-fee-payers are denied (access to discounts, affinity retailing, etc.).

At NYSDOT, the agency fee is the exact same rate as the dues, so there's not financial reasons not to join.  PEF's political activities are funded though a separate fund and not dues (which might be required by law in NY).

[Scott5114]

Getting extra pay isn't really the point, it's having a chance to decompress, use the bathroom, make a phone call, whatever.

I missed this sentence, so I'd like to clarify the reason why I mentioned 3× pay for missing a break is not necessarily to compensate the employee, but to provide the business a financial incentive to provide breaks. If the $7.25/hour employee gets a $10.89 bonus added to their check for missing the break, the manager has to stop and consider whether it is really worth $10.89 for them to work through that 30 minutes.

Politically it will never happen, though.

[jeffandnicole]

Getting extra pay isn't really the point, it's having a chance to decompress, use the bathroom, make a phone call, whatever.

I missed this sentence, so I'd like to clarify the reason why I mentioned 3× pay for missing a break is not necessarily to compensate the employee, but to provide the business a financial incentive to provide breaks. If the $7.25/hour employee gets a $10.89 bonus added to their check for missing the break, the manager has to stop and consider whether it is really worth $10.89 for them to work through that 30 minutes.

Politically it will never happen, though.

And in companies that offer employees longer breaks - 45 or 60 minutes - would they decide to reduce them to 30 minutes so on the occasion the employee has to work thru lunch, they aren't paid as much.  I could see many employees and unions jump on the 3x bandwagon without fully thinking this through.

60 minutes, which is what I get now, allows me to go out for lunch to do a quick errand, or take a decent walk.  30 minutes would only allow me to reach into the fridge and pull out my salad.

[Scott5114]

I would assume the law requiring such a thing would provide a cap, probably at thirty minutes, so that a company with a 60-minute lunch would only be required to pay an employee for 30 minutes if they worked through the lunch.

I've never worked at a company that had a lunch longer than 30 minutes. I get 60 minutes of total break time, but that's a 30 and two 15s.

[texaskdog]

My kid never gets a break at work.  They are pretty good to her otherwise.

[Rothman]

Functionally speaking, though, if you are paying dues to a union, and represented by it, you are for all intents and purposes a member whether you have officially joined or not. So mandatory union membership being illegal is rather meaningless.

Technically, there's a distinction between agency fees and union dues; if working in a union-represented job, you can be compelled to pay an agency fee for the union's negotiation of your salary and work conditions, but you are not obliged to help subsidize any other activities of the union by joining and paying union dues (such as its political activities).

Nonetheless most unions have found sufficiently creative approaches to their accounting to ensure that the agency fee represents the vast majority of the union dues, so the incentives for not joining the union are minimal (and likely largely ideological, i.e. due to a disagreement with the union or its leadership, or collective bargaining in general) compared to the selective incentives union members get that agency-fee-payers are denied (access to discounts, affinity retailing, etc.).

At NYSDOT, the agency fee is the exact same rate as the dues, so there's not financial reasons not to join.  PEF's political activities are funded though a separate fund and not dues (which might be required by law in NY).

Well, it's not exactly the same rate.  I've been both PEF and M/C.  The agency fee is a little cheaper, but hey, who wants to go without cheaper movie tickets?

[vdeane]

It was the same rate when I joined Region 1 last year.  Maybe it's changed at some point.  Or maybe different PEF regions do things differently,

[Rothman]

All I know is that during my most recent stint as M/C is that the agency fee was definitely a little cheaper than the full fee.

Might be grade-specific.