What time should lunch breaks be allocated?

oldernonethewiser

DullGreyGuy said:

Let's say you do a 10 hour shift, 10am to 8pm. What it's saying is your statutory 30 minute break (which doesn't have to be paid) cannot be at 10am effectively making your working day 10:30am to 8pm without any breaks. 

They are just being a bit white collar worker there assuming everyone has a 9-5 day when what it really means is middle of your shift not middle of the day. What the guys on the night shift would do were the strictly that your lunch has to be at midday I've no idea. 

The most obvious answer is to have breakfast and secondary point of booking the midday slot for yourself 

20 minutes is the legal minimum.

DullGreyGuy

oldernonethewiser said:

DullGreyGuy said:

Let's say you do a 10 hour shift, 10am to 8pm. What it's saying is your statutory 30 minute break (which doesn't have to be paid) cannot be at 10am effectively making your working day 10:30am to 8pm without any breaks. 

They are just being a bit white collar worker there assuming everyone has a 9-5 day when what it really means is middle of your shift not middle of the day. What the guys on the night shift would do were the strictly that your lunch has to be at midday I've no idea. 

The most obvious answer is to have breakfast and secondary point of booking the midday slot for yourself 

20 minutes is the legal minimum.

Damn my phat fingers

Alanp

Tell them you’re taking your lunch break at 4:30, 

MattMattMattUK

Alanp said:

Tell them you’re taking your lunch break at 4:30, 

The employee does not get to choose when.

EnPointe

jackhernandez said:

I work a 9-5 job on phones for an advice line with my local council.
      The policy is that we have to book our lunch slots in so that no two people are on lunch at the same time.
        The problem is that we are not allowed to go on our lunch until the person before us has returned from theirs. So If I book a lunch slot at 14:30, I might not get my lunch until 3pm or even later. Now the law states that lunches need to be allocated during the middle of the day, not the beginning and not the end. So is 3pm legally too late. What about 4pm? When is the middle of the day? Surely the time at which you eat needs to be legally enforced. I haven't eaten all day and I'm starving by 2:30pm and I'm not being allowed to eat. 

I am a member of unison, I was considering raising it with them but they are pretty useless when it comes to these things as our current branch secretary is a bootlicker to the council managers. 

which Law do you believe this to be ? 

AFAIK   ( asa  Union Rep and a IOSH Managing Safely  holder)  the Legal requirements  ( in HASAW 1974) for break for adults  are that you must have at least a 20 minute  break  starting no later than 6 hours into  your  shift 

not sure if  the 'not in the first hour' and 'not in the last hour'  rule  are based in regulation or legislation 

EnPointe

Undervalued said:

General_Grant said:

The gov website does indeed say "somewhere in the middle of the day (not at the beginning or end)".
That is guidance, not the law itself.
Take "middle of the day" to mean "middle of the shift" and that covers workers who work nights or start really early or late.

It is generally taken to mean that it can't just shorten the day by being taken right at the beginning or end.

It certainly doesn't mean it has to be exactly in the middle.

Like so many things is law, it comes down to what is reasonable. Having your break almost at the end of the day then returning for a quarter of an hour's work almost certainly wouldn't be reasonable. Somewhere in the middle three hours out of six almost certainly would be reasonable. 

Beyond that is where lawyers make their money!

when  i worked for an Ambulance service on a  typical 12 hour shift the 'break window' for your actual  'mealbreak'  (i.e. undisturbed or Cat 1only  and  returned to base  or at least to a base if not your sign on  base )  was between 5 and 7.5 hours into the shift  and if you  went outside the window you got an late break payment ... but there was a degree of unoffical 'breaks'  ( but you were on call and  expected to ackinolwedge and respond to a dispatch detail in a timely manner)  especially  when demand was less acute as your 15 minutes clean upand turn around after  handing a patient over  getting stretched out  by being 'avilable'  or  sent on standby ( oddly  enough many  standby points  have 'tolerated alternates' that  happened to a local  cafe or one of the chain coffee shops / Maccies)

B0bbyEwing

I read the first couple responses or so & not the rest. 

On that basis, the responses were a bit of a joke in my opinion.

"Eat breakfast"? Yeah, very helpful.......not.

I was just reading this thread out of curiosity, nothing more. I don't side with the OP that some dinner time needs to be enforced like a specific time or anything but I sympathise with their situation.

Take the nonsense response of "eat breakfast" here...

I wake at 5am. I HAVE A BREAKFAST. A big fat bowl of porridge and a big jug of coffee actually. My dinner break is about 1:20-1:40 (as in the starting time) BUT I also have a 15min break in the morning. Without this 15min break & going all the way from 5 until 2:30pm I would be full on belly rumbling, belly hurting & not being able to perform the job as well as I should.

Would I say "starving", well yeah talking amongst friends but on an internet forum where everyone scrutinises everything & will throw the dictionary definition of starving at you to try and pull your post apart - nope I wouldn't say starving, but painfully hungry yeah.

Eat breakfast. Honestly.

And the other "obvious" response of book an earlier slot. Maybe the obvious one is that they're always booked by the same people & that's why OP couldn't go earlier? Who knows. Maybe the later replies answer that. I just couldn't believe the opening responses this thread got.

Nothanks

Do other people actually know you don’t want a late lunch? 

Because a conversation with your colleagues in a small team seems the best place to start, rather than looking for legal backup. 

Out of interest…what would you want your branch secretary to actually do?

Merlin139

jackhernandez said:

I work a 9-5 job on phones for an advice line with my local council.
      The policy is that we have to book our lunch slots in so that no two people are on lunch at the same time.
        The problem is that we are not allowed to go on our lunch until the person before us has returned from theirs. So If I book a lunch slot at 14:30, I might not get my lunch until 3pm or even later. Now the law states that lunches need to be allocated during the middle of the day, not the beginning and not the end. So is 3pm legally too late. What about 4pm? When is the middle of the day? Surely the time at which you eat needs to be legally enforced. I haven't eaten all day and I'm starving by 2:30pm and I'm not being allowed to eat. 

I am a member of unison, I was considering raising it with them but they are pretty useless when it comes to these things as our current branch secretary is a bootlicker to the council managers.

How many people work in your department? Do you all start work at the same time? Can you all get together and discuss the subject? Take it in turns eachday to take your breaks. 

With five people, number 1 to 5.

Monday 1 goes first then followed by 2,3,4 and 5

Tuesday 2 goes first then followed by 3,4,5 and 1

Wednesday 3 goes first, Thursday 4 goes first and Friday 5 goes first. 

Falling this idea, get to work before everyone else and book an earlier slot.

I have experienced having to take early breaks. 1.5 hrs into an 8 hour shift. Didn't like it, but break times were rotated round the team.

Or have I got the wrong end of the stick? Are you complaining about the person who goes at 14:00 not returning after 30 minutes to enable to you to go at 14:30?

If so then you should approach your department manager about the problem.

MattMattMattUK

B0bbyEwing said:

I read the first couple responses or so & not the rest. 

On that basis, the responses were a bit of a joke in my opinion.

"Eat breakfast"? Yeah, very helpful.......not.

I was just reading this thread out of curiosity, nothing more. I don't side with the OP that some dinner time needs to be enforced like a specific time or anything but I sympathise with their situation.

Take the nonsense response of "eat breakfast" here...

I wake at 5am. I HAVE A BREAKFAST. A big fat bowl of porridge and a big jug of coffee actually. My dinner break is about 1:20-1:40 (as in the starting time) BUT I also have a 15min break in the morning. Without this 15min break & going all the way from 5 until 2:30pm I would be full on belly rumbling, belly hurting & not being able to perform the job as well as I should.

Would I say "starving", well yeah talking amongst friends but on an internet forum where everyone scrutinises everything & will throw the dictionary definition of starving at you to try and pull your post apart - nope I wouldn't say starving, but painfully hungry yeah.

Eat breakfast. Honestly.

A high carb breakfast will always leave one hungry, blood sugar will spike, then fall, leaving the consumer hungry, better to eat something with protein and healthy fats. Most adults I know do not want to eat lunch at twelve, sometime between one and three is normally their preferred time, they are not starving, they to not have rumbling bellies, they are certainly not threatening their employer with some made up legislation.

Eat breakfast, eat something that is not high in carbs, that is not caffeine dependant and as a healthy adult, unless one is in an highly physical job one should be fine to skip lunch and go all the way through until dinner. 

Far better to respond rationally, than fill a post with excessive emotion and poor sarcasm.