I've worked a number of jobs, one actually had a paid lunch, but all of my other jobs have done this “mandatory 30 minute unpaid lunch”. And it just feels like the absolute biggest scam. Of course, you can't use that 30 minute lunch for the beginning or end of your shift, even though it's mandatory and management often doesn't care when you take it. It's infuriating. At my previous job, my manager was actually fine with us taking it at the end of our shift to leave a half hour earlier, but corporate eventually caught on and penalized him for it. And it wasn't a situation where we were operating a customer facing storefront or something and had to be open til a specific time. We were perfectly capable of finishing our tasks 30 minutes before closing. But we couldn't leave and take our lunch at that time.
My current job is a bit different in that we do serve customers and stay open til a certain time, but it still feels like such a ripoff. I get paid for 8 hours of work. Yet, because of the mandatory unpaid lunch, I am forced to be at work/away from home for 8.5 hours. I am close to work, but for most people, with a commute, that means they're gone for at least 9 hours, in many cases 9.5 or even 10 hours, but only getting paid for 8 hours. It's such a scam!
The least these companies could do would give people the option to forego the unpaid lunch so they could leave earlier and get more of their precious time back. Or maybe they could just pony up and pay people for a 30 minute lunch. Most hourly workers who are forced to take the mandatory unpaid lunch make less than $20 per hour, just pay people the $5-$10 for their 30 minute lunch.
Anyway just needed to rant, for the record, I understand that this initially comes from labor disputes, in the past a lot of places wouldn't give people any lunch, paid or not, and people fought for the right to have a mandatory lunch break, but I still think it's a ripoff. If it's not paid, I shouldn't be forced to be there imo