If you are required by your employer to attend a mandatory meeting during your lunch, do you have to clock in and out for lunch? Employer is saying its against the law to not clock out for lunch because it will go over the 6 hours. But I thought you have to get paid for any mandatory meetings you attend.
So if my normal schedule is 8-5 and i have an hour lunch that is being used up by my mandatory meeting, i should have a full 9 hours on my time card. with 1 hour of overtime, correct?

Yes, that's correct. There is also a penalty of one hour's wages for failure to provide a meal period as required by law. That would not be considered as an hour worked, though.
http://www.dir.ca.gov/dlse/FAQ_MealPeriods.htm

You’re correct, if it mandatory it must be paid, unless all of the following applied:

- meeting is outside the regular work hours
- meeting is voluntary
- meeting is not directly related to the job
- employee does not perform any work while in the meeting

pattymd is correct on the additional hour, no OT on that one

thank you!!!

what if the meeting is offsite?
do i get paid travel time and gas mileage?

Generally speaking, the "mileage rate" is intended to cover the cost of operating the vehicle. Under CA Labor Code Section 2802, the employer must make the employee "whole" for personally incurred business expenses.

Now, to the travel. Generally speaking (again), if you travel directly from your home to the off-site location and return home from there, that's considered commute time and is not compensable. How far are we talking about here? And if so, is this appreciably shorter or longer than your normal commute?

it was just a hypothetical question.
Say I had to travel 45 minutes from home to offsite meeting. my normal commute time is only 15 minutes. How would that work?
Say i was at the meeting from 8-2 and my jobsite from 2-5.

The travel between your home and the training site would be commute time and not compensable (unless there's some arcane requirement specific to California). The travel time between the training site back to work would be compensable.

The travel between your home and the training site would be commute time and not compensable (unless there's some arcane requirement specific to California). The travel time between the training site back to work would be compensable.

One "arcane requirement specific to California" coming up.

The DLSE has takes the position that travel involving a substantial distance from one's fixed assigned work place to a distant work site to report to work on a short-term basis is compensable travel time. The travel time is measured by the difference between the time it normally takes the employee to travel from his or her home to the assigned work place and the time it takes the employee to travel from home to the distant work site. You can access the DLSE's opinion letter on this subject here http://www.dir.ca.gov/dlse/opinions/2003-04-22.pdf

One "arcane requirement specific to California" coming up.



Hence, my disclaimer. :p

An appelate court just ruled that meal breaks are wages and not penalties. So you can bill your employer for one hours wage if they fail to pay you your meal breaks or other breaks.

If you are required by your employer to attend a mandatory meeting during your lunch, do you have to clock in and out for lunch? Employer is saying its against the law to not clock out for lunch because it will go over the 6 hours. But I thought you have to get paid for any mandatory meetings you attend.
So if my normal schedule is 8-5 and i have an hour lunch that is being used up by my mandatory meeting, i should have a full 9 hours on my time card. with 1 hour of overtime, correct?