I run a fast food restaurant and also take care of employee scheduling.

I have this employee that keeps telling me that if I don't give an employee 8 hour between shifts it can "lead to trouble for me".

Basically threatening me in a subtle way.

An example of this scheduling would be a 4:00 PM - 12:00 AM (Close Shift) and the next day an opening shift of 6:00 AM - 2:00 PM.

Any hard proof on this?

Thanks.

What kind of "trouble"?

No idea, that is all they said.

Is there such a law?

Probably not. When you look at CA "law", you look at the Labor Code, the industry specific regulation (called Wage Orders) and maybe research tools such as the CA-DLSE Enforcement Manual.

I have heard this claim before, but have never been able to support it. Now the CA Labor Code is huge, and I certainly have not read and memorized the entire thing. I have read through several of the Wage Orders before, and I have tried researching this question through the Enforcement Manual without results.

Can the people who claim that such a law exists give you a reference supporting their claim? Or maybe you can give CA-DLSE a call and ask them.

http://www.leginfo.ca.gov/calaw.html

http://www.dir.ca.gov/iwc/WageOrderIndustries.htm

http://www.dir.ca.gov/dlse/Manual-Instructions.htm

I have been asked this many times and never been able to find anything in the labor code or the wage orders. Can't find anything in opinion letters either.

But, you might want to review these opinion letters that discuss different shifts, including info about split shifts as they might be applicable to your situation:

http://www.dir.ca.gov/dlse/opinions/1986-12-01.pdf
http://www.dir.ca.gov/dlse/opinions/2002-12-11.pdf

Here is an excellent Q&A that addresses your questions:

http://www.dir.ca.gov/dirnews/1997/otfaq.html

Are there any required rest times between work shifts -- i.e. an employee works from 7:00 a. m. to 7:00 p.m. -- how soon can this employee be called back?

There is no limit on when an employee can or cannot be called back to work. Employers are cautioned, however, to keep in mind safety concerns for employees to avoid injuries due to fatigue.

Here's a good flyer for employees in the restaurant industry:

http://www.dir.ca.gov/dlse/Publications/WorkersRightsFlyer-Restaurant-English.pdf

thanks for all the insightful responses.

This comes from the Motion Picture Industry Wage Order (#12).

Section 3:
(F) No employee shall be required to report to work unless ten (10) hours have elapsed since the termination of the previous day’s employment.

It is not applicable to other industries.

Thanks for that, Michael. I still can't figure out why so many people (in other industries besides motion pictures) think that they must have at least 8 hours off between shifts.

Did California have any such law in the past or is this just an urban legend that keeps gaining in strength?

I can't find it in any other wage order going back to the 90's, so I am not sure where it comes from. I get asked about this frequently, so a lot of people apparently believe it. Many union agreements have such a provision, but given how widespread this belief is, I doubt that this is the origin of this wage and hour urban legend. There are some regulations for truck drivers that require 8 hours off between shifts, but the times vary based on how many hours were previously worked.

This is an interesting one because the belief is so wide spread, but I have never found a good culprit for this myth.

California is not the only state where this is widely believed. I've seen a belief that such a law exists applied to almost every state at one point or another. With limited industry specific exceptions and occasionally exceptions for minors, if any state has such a law I have yet to see confirmation of it.

This is an interesting one because the belief is so wide spread, but I have never found a good culprit for this myth.

Well, I know for a fact that in Europe, specifically in Germany, the employer has to give the employee 11 hours break between work days.

I know this is not Europe, but this might be a little explanation for the wide spread "myth".


By the way, this is my first post in this forum. I've been reading/learning a lot here and now I can finally give some input of my own :)

Also the Transportation industries (Trucking, Airlines,and Railways) have similar hours of service rules,and some employees here about them,and think they apply across the board. I have seen this confusion many times.
JoeC

Thanks, everyone, the next time I hear "don't they get 8 hours off between shifts?" from a client (after clenching teeth in frustration), I can explain the various places where they might have gotten that impression. I will also pointedly ask where they themselves got that idea.:)

As a follow up, I also came across this one in Wage Order #5 (Public House Keeping). As you can see, it has a fairly limited application and requires that a full 24 hour shift be worked.


(2) Employees with direct responsibility for children who are under 18 years of age or who are not emancipated from the foster care system and who, in either case, are receiving 24 hour residential care, may, without violating any provision of this section, be compensated as follows:
[Special overtime rules]
...
(d) No employee [who meets the above requirement] shall work more than 24 consecutive hours until said employee receives not less than eight (8) consecutive hours off-duty immediately following the 24 consecutive hours of work. Time spent sleeping shall not be included as hours worked.

Yep - fairly familiar with that wage order as I work exclusively with hospitals and I saw the 8 hours off after 24 on duty.

The only employees, with my clients, that might meet the 24-hour work periods are paramedics and they are rarely employed by the hospital itself.

The most reasonable explanation I see for why this belief is so widespread is that it's very common at universities and local govnernment and a lot of CBAs.