So I get a 30 minute unpaid lunch for every shift longer than 6 hours that I have to clock out for. I eat in my car everyday partially to get away from people and partially because I buy lunch at different fast food places in the area. (I know it's cheaper to bring my own lunch but my living situation doesn't allow me to do any kind of meal prep, even the night before, without someone else eating my food.) I'll admit I tend to take closer to 35 minute lunches because who wants to go back to retail hell?
For the last 2 years, no one has had a problem with this, I always take my lunch last so no one is waiting for me to get back to the registers so they can eat, and if I need a longer lunch for an errand or something, I let my fellow assistant managers know. I'm not the only one who takes a slightly longer lunch most days, a few of the cashiers do as well and one of my fellow assistant managers finds a way to get more than our alloted 2 10 minute paid breaks most days. I also close 5 nights a week, so whatever extra time I take at lunch, I gain back at the end of the night plus extra. We close at 7pm, my schedule is until 7pm, but I never clock out before 7:15, usually closer to 7:20.
My manager only started to notice my 'long' lunches because I was taking a lot of time off to deal with sick family (I'm primary care for my mom and grandparents and my manager/hr knows this), we had a fire in our house back in March, and I was getting too close to dropping below the minimum average for benefits. He is monitoring my lunch everyday and is threatening that if I don't get it to 30 minutes exact, he will change my paycoding to an hour lunch and move my punches to match. I.E., if I get re-coded for an hour but only take 40 minutes, he'll adjust my punches to 60 minutes. Can he do that? Reworking my schedule for an hour lunch everyday would also mean I'd have to pick up additional hours that I just don't have time for with 2 other jobs but I can't not have benefits.
TL;dr: my manager is threatening to reschedule my lunches to an hour and adjust my lunch punches to 60 minutes regardless of how long I actually take if I don't stop taking 35 minutes when scheduled for 30 despite no one else in my department having a problem with this.