Can somebody please tell me if it is California Law to PUNCH IN / OUT for lunch? Or even if it is a Federal Law? :confused:
If so, where can I find it in writing?
Thanks!

Neither Federal nor state law, in any state, specifically requires punching in and out. However, neither Federal or state law, in any state, prohibits an employer from requiring you to punch in and out for lunch. And both Federal law and state law in most states, including CA, requires that the employer keep accurate records of the employees' time, it being up to the employer how those records are kept.

So if the employer is requiring you to punch in and out for lunch, then you are required to punch in and out for lunch, and no law is going to give you permission to ignore the employer's demand. Even if no law specifically says, "You must punch in and out for lunch under law # xx.xxx".

CA requires you take a min of 30 minute meal break if you work over (could hav number wrong) 6 hours in one day. Now if you punch a clock and are unpaid for this break then I would expect that you be required to punch. Your employer would need to prove you did indeed take this meal break and punching a clock would do that.

It's not a federal law. California law does, to my knowledge, require actual in/out times for nonexempt employees; whether that also applies to meal periods, I really don't know.

Having said that, however, since California law is so strict regarding meal periods for nonexempt employees, having such records would certainly help the employer if a wage claim were to be filed complaining that the 30-minute meal period was not provided. The employer can certainly require it if they choose to.

Are you the employer or the employee?

I read the question differently than Panther.

If the question is, does the law require that I take a lunch break, then yes, CA law does so require, as Panther indicated.

If the answer is, can I be forced to punch in and out for that lunch break, then read my response.

California requires that the employer maintain clock in and clock out times for Non-Exempt employees only. CA requirements are more stringent then the related federal rules. The following quote is from Wage Order #4. The actual law (CA labor code section 1174) is a bit more generally worded.

7. Records
(A) Every employer shall keep accurate information with respect to each employee including the following: ...
(3) Time records showing when the employee begins and ends each work period. Meal periods, split shift intervals and total daily
hours worked shall also be recorded. Meal periods during which operations cease and authorized rest periods need not be recorded.

Federal rules (mostly 29 CFR 785.xxx series regulations) requires that employers maintain total hours worked only (no in-out times) by day for Non-Exempt employees.

Please note that in both cases the time accounting requirement is on the employer, not the employee. However, as CBG says, the employer can legally create work rules requiring the employee follow the employer's time accounting procedure and can legally disipline employees who fail to comply, including possibly termination. Employers can legally tell their employees to do a great many things not actually prohibitted by law. When to come to work, when to leave work, what clothes to wear (or not), and when to take lunch and breaks. In the case of time accounting, it is not possible for employers to comply with their legal obligations without some degree of cooperation from their employees. We are talking about very old law here that have largely been unchanged since the 1930s and which was probably common practice well before that.

THANK YOU all for your responses. From the responses I've read, it is NOT a law to have employees punch in / out for meal times BUT it is a policy to enforce to protect the employer.
To Patty, I am an office manager, and the company I worked for prior to coming here told us (OM's) it was "THE LAW" to punch in / out for meal breaks. Looking into this for the past few days, I see nothing that indicates it is law.

Again, thank you ALL for your help, I do appreciate it! ;)

Law or not if your employer says do it you do it.

Panther is quite correct. Whether it is a law or not, it is a legal policy and you can be disciplined up to and including termination if you fail to comply.

Any smart CA employer will require clocking IN/OUT for lunch by policy. This way they can prove that employees got the meal period required by law.

Failure to permit/provide meal breaks in CA will result in huge, costly penalties. Just look at any recent CA paper to see who the latest employer was that got caught not giving meal breaks.

Ok so heres a few things I have some questions about. My company just a few months ago started paying the extra hour of pay if you didn't get a lunch break. I work in retail. When did that come into effect, and if I or other employees worked without meal breaks, should we have been compensated for the days we worked without being paid the extra hour? There were a few months where it was just one other manager and I working, so we didn't get to take our lunch breaks because we didn't have overlap to do so.

Ok question #2
My company doesn't pay for split shifts. @ other retailers I worked for did pay for that if you worked a second time in a day. I asked my boss about that because I would report split shift hours for employees who did work twice, and the response I got was that the company didn't pay that. And another response I got was because it's not available on our time sheets. That doesn't seem like a valid answer to me.

Any feedback on these would be helpful, thanks!

Ok so heres a few things I have some questions about. My company just a few months ago started paying the extra hour of pay if you didn't get a lunch break. I work in retail. When did that come into effect, and if I or other employees worked without meal breaks, should we have been compensated for the days we worked without being paid the extra hour? There were a few months where it was just one other manager and I working, so we didn't get to take our lunch breaks because we didn't have overlap to do so.

Ok question #2
My company doesn't pay for split shifts. @ other retailers I worked for did pay for that if you worked a second time in a day. I asked my boss about that because I would report split shift hours for employees who did work twice, and the response I got was that the company didn't pay that. And another response I got was because it's not available on our time sheets. That doesn't seem like a valid answer to me.

Any feedback on these would be helpful, thanks!

Shopgirl1 reposted this in her own thread (or maybe cbg did it-grin).