Lunch Laws in Virginia

[V. Price]

I work for an excavation company in the state of Virginia. Most of our employees are truck drivers. Although they are required to clock out and back in for lunch, most of them do not and tell us they did not take a lunch. Sometimes they say they stopped to buy a sandwich and ate it while driving. Our boss insists that we deduct each employee 30 minutes for lunch. Is this legal? I fear that if deducting the 30 minutes from their pay is illegal, a disgruntled employee may report us to the Labor Department and we have legal repercussions. Please advise me as soon as you can. V. Price

[Pattymd]

If you can't prove that they DID take a lunch, you should probably be paying them when they report that they didn't take the meal period. It is very likely that, in a DOL audit or other claim for unpaid wages, that the investigation would side with the employee if you cannot prove otherwise. However, you can discipline them for refusing to follow company policy. That discipline just can't be refusal to pay the time.