Where I work (healthcare) breaks have automatically been deducted from our hours. It's been like that everywhere I've worked. My department is a smaller one and we also have to have someone available 24/7 so for my whole career, at work, I've never had a real break. We've had down time. Sometimes lots f it, so we eat at those times. However, if we get called away, we have to go and come back to our food who knows how much later. If we are really busy, we could punch out 'no break' and we'd be paid for the 30 minutes they deducted.
So, not long ago the company did away with the automatic deductions and we now have to punch out. We can do it on an app on our phones or on computers on site. Last week, I had my first *real* break in decades when I didn't have a hospital issued phone that is used by other units to call for whatever they need. It was so nice!
Today, I reminded the person I worked with about the breaks. i took mine, got my food all ready, started eating, and had a call come through on my phone. The other person was just sitting there, but didn't cover for me. I said something like wondering if I should punch back in but was told no. Basically saying that with down time, I'd have a break at some point but to keep compliant with the 30 uninterrupted minutes on break, I needed to stay punched out even as I went to do work. However, the education we were made to watch for the new system stressed we were to have 30 uninterrupted minutes. I ended up punching back in on my way to the thing I had to do. I was gone 45 min and when I came back, my sandwich bread had gone dry, almost stale. My break ended up being 17 min. I never punched out again. Oh, and 12 hour shift. Question is, was I wrong to punch back in?