I work for the Events Department at a university and this last weekend we put on a huge conference and we ended up working crazy long hours. It was a great time, but we're not too sure how it all works out in regards to our time cards.

Here's a list of my hours worked and then some questions related to it that I've had some trouble finding concrete answers to. ( I used 24 hour time because it lined up better in columns and the weird breaks on friday morning were for classes)

Friday
07:30 - 09:00 - 01.50 hrs
10:30 - 11:30 - 01.00 hrs
12:30 - 14:15 - 01.75 hrs
15:00 - 03:00 - 12.00 hrs - working lunch, hours spill over to Saturday
Saturday
06:30 - 14:15 - 07.75 hrs - working lunch
15:00 - 01:00 - 10:00 hrs - working lunch

HR is going to have fun with this, but I thought I would ask some questions here to try and clear up some of the confusion in my own head about CA labor laws.

1. Is there a minimum time period necessary between shifts, I've heard there's an 8 hour rule, a 6 hour rule, no rule at all, which is it? If there is, then Saturday would be a continuation of the Friday shift and all those hours would fall under double time, would they not?

2. Regarding the lunch penalty - My understanding of the lunch penalty is that if you do not receive a lunch period free from all job responsibilities, then you are awarded a penalty payment equal to one hour of regular pay. Is that correct? Also, if there are multiple periods missed in a single day, is only one penalty awarded or is one awarded per missed period?

3. If hours of a single shift flow over from one day to the next (I'm assuming that my employer has no specified hours for a work day, so it would rest at 12:00am-11:59pm) does that all go on one day's hours or would you push the very early morning hours to the next day?

Correct me if I'm wrong, but here's how I see it. If there is a minimum time required between shifts, then this is pretty simple and I get paid a bunch of double time. If there is no minimum, then the question becomes, where do my hours break off and become separate days to be split into regular, overtime, and double time?

Sorry this is so long, but i wanted to be thorough in my explanation and questions.

Thanks for any of your help

1. To my knowledge, there are no shift rules in CA as you describe.

2. The meals rules can be found at the following.
http://www.dir.ca.gov/dlse/FAQ_MealPeriods.htm

3. The overtime rules can be found at the following. Federal rules (FLSA) mandates that all employers without exception have formal work weeks for all employees. The work week does not have to be the same for each employee but it does have to exist and does have to be generally fixed in time. Under CA rules, the federal work week choosen defines the work days. There is a 100% chance that your employer already has choosen a fixed work week (and derived work days) for you well before this conference occured. Ask them what it is if you do not know. Employees do not get to choose their work week / work days definitions.
http://www.dir.ca.gov/dlse/FAQ_Overtime.htm