So for some context I work in retail. We had a few people the other day come to help my department set things up for back to school. One of the people helping us usually works in the online orders department. They're helping me out, put things on shelves and they asks me ” so how do brakes work over here?” I thought it was obvious we take our lunch and two 15 minute breaks for an 8 hour shift. I told them that we take all our breaks over here whenever we need to take our breaks. That question in itself concerned me so I asked them ” How do breaks work over in your department?” They proceed to tell me that in their department they usually don't take breaks and if they do they take one 15 minute break.
I was in complete shock. I told them that they need to take their lunches and brakes no matter how busy it is over in that department. I told them that they needs to do that for her own health, but also my work is unionized, and that if they is in the union they need to report that immediately. They aren't, but wants to be, so I told them how they can sign up for the union.
And on top of that, I have no proof in this whatsoever, they also tell me that them and their mother have looked through their pay stubs and noticing ALLEGEDLY the business is going in the system and marking them for taking their lunch when they haven't. Meaning that they are forced to skip their lunch and work 30 minutes unpaid. I told them that they need to definitely bring that up to not only the union but the state department of labor. And if they need to file a grievance against management they have every right.
To wrap it up before I left that day they finally took a lunch and told me that it was nice having a lunch, and that they hadn't had one in over 2 months and thanked me for giving them the motivation to do so.