Labor Law & Lunch in Illinois

Illinois' labor laws include a statute concerning mandatory meal periods for workers. The law entitles most employees in the state to take a certain amount of time for lunch each day. Even for employees who may not feel like actually eating, the lunch break may provide valuable time for relaxing and decompressing from potential strains and stresses of work.

Facts

• Illinois employers must allow employees who work at least a 7 1/2-hour shift to take a lunch or other meal period of at least 20 minutes no later than five hours into their shift. Exceptions apply to employees who work under conditions agreed to in collective bargaining and employees who look after individuals with a developmental disability or mental illness who may need supervision during an entire eight-hour shift. Those employees may eat a meal while remaining on duty, however. Hotel room attendants in Illinois counties with a population of higher than 3 million must receive a 30-minute meal break, plus two 15-minute paid rest breaks, during any work shift of at least seven hours.

Purpose

• The rule about lunch or meal breaks is part of a law called the One Day Rest in Seven Act, which prevents employers from scheduling employees to work seven days in a week unless the employee gives prior consent. Taken together, the provisions in the law ensure that Illinois employees get a certain amount of time per day and per week to rest and recuperate from work.

Comparison

• Not every state has laws that are as definitive about lunch breaks as the one in Illinois. Only about 20 states have laws on their books requiring meal periods for employees, although most of those states require meal periods of 30 minutes rather than 20, according to the United States Department of Labor. In most states, employers face no obligation to offer lunch periods and can require employees to work any number of consecutive hours.

Considerations

• Nothing in the law regarding lunch and meal breaks requires employers to pay employees for their time during a meal period. Thus employees who work eight paid hours a day, as is common in many occupations, must schedule an additional 20 minutes at the beginning or end of the day to accommodate the time off for lunch. If the available lunch period is longer, as is the case at many jobs, employees must add more time to the workday to receive their full pay.

Misconceptions

• While Illinois state law says little on the subject, federal guidelines for lunch or meal breaks are specific about what constitutes a break. Employees should not have to perform work-related duties during their meal break. Employees who have to work while eating lunch must receive compensation at their usual rate for the time. However, employers may require employees to stay on site for lunch, as long as they do not have to do any work.