This is a major hotel brand that owns other hotel brands. As a bartender I make 8$ an hour (pre-tips) and work 4 days a week, usually 7-8 hours but sometimes as long as 10. I don't want to take a break, the problem is they try to force us to with no one to cover. So most servers and bartenders work through their breaks. The managers also work through their breaks. I refuse to work through a break, but I've done it in the past to not make waves. But now they're “cracking down” on employees who don't take breaks, I've had privileges revoked and have been asked to come in earlier than my scheduled shift, made to stay late once (after an 11 hour day and I said never again!) and threatened with being written up and ultimately with job loss. My managers above me state that they don't want to go that route, but that they are being threatened with being written up and eventually losing their jobs! And they try to claim that they're just complying with the labor department's laws.
There are NO laws regarding mandatory meal breaks for adults over 18 in Florida or federally here in the Us. To be clear, I don't want to or feel the need to take a break, I'm angry that I'm expected to stay later instead of leaving after my shift to take a non existent break! That's not a break, that's essentially keeping you hostage after work
I am outright refusing at this point bc even at 16$ a week in lost wages from my 4 days a week, that's like 832$ a year in lost wages. To say nothing if your fingerprint doesn't work when attempting to clock back in, or if you get busy and it takes you 30 or more minutes to make it back to the time clock, which is across the hotel. I've talked to people in other departments, and front desk workers, engineering and security all feel that they generally end up working through breaks at least part of the time if not all of the time- bc if a guest has an emergency and they're the only one on duty at night, it's on them to fix. Same if there's an unruly guest that security needs to deal with. Or a pipe bursts and engineering just clocked out for lunch. And I'm sure they all make more than the tipped workers minimum wage! So- if I'm mad about this, I can't imagine others not being livid and this having the possibility to blow up into a huuuuuuuuuuge class action lawsuit. This company has hundreds of thousands of employees! This company is making a killing off of unpaid labor under the guise of being nice and ensuring you get a meal time at work everyday. Additionally there is a required amount of hours that we have to work to be able to qualify for insurance, and with many people losing 2.5 hours a week if they just work straight through like the restaurant employees do, that's less people that this corporation has to provide insurance to.
TLDR: I work for a huge corp that essentially mandates we take a break whether we want to or not, my job is being threatened for refusing to comply, I think it's class- action lawsuit-worthy.