Break (work)

[1] It is not uncommon for this break to be unpaid, and for the entire work day from start to finish to be longer than the number of hours paid in order to accommodate this time.[9] During this time it was not unusual for companies to work their employees for long hours without a break and to pay them minuscule wages.[10] Penalties can be severe for failing to adequately staff one's business premises so that all employees can rotate through their mandatory meal and rest breaks.The California Supreme court ruled that employers satisfy their California Labor Code section 512 obligation to "provide" meal periods to nonexempt employees by (1) relieving employees of all duty; (2) relinquishing control over their activities and permitting them a reasonable opportunity to take an uninterrupted 30-minute break; and (3) not impeding or discouraging them from doing so.Importantly, the court agreed that employers are not obliged to "police" meal breaks to ensure that no work is performed.Denying employees rights to use the facilities as needed could adversely affect workplace sanitation and workers' health and could create legal issues for both these and other reasons.[16] Employers and co-workers often frown on employees who are seen as taking too many of these breaks, and this could be a cause for progressive discipline from a written warning up to termination.The origin of the tea break, as is now incorporated into the law of most countries, stems from research undertaken in England in the early 1900s.Stanley Kent, an Oxford graduate and the first Professor of Physiology at University College, Bristol, undertook scientific research on industrial fatigue at the request of the Home Office (UK).This work followed the International Congress of Hygiene and Demography held in Brussels in 1903 where a resolution was passed that "the various governments should facilitate as far as possible investigation into the subject of Industrial Fatigue".The results of Kent's study were presented to both Houses of Parliament on 17 August 1915 in an "Interim Report on Industrial Fatigue by Physiological Methods".[18] The coffee break allegedly originated in the late 19th century in Stoughton, Wisconsin, with the wives of Norwegian immigrants."[22] John B. Watson, a behavioral psychologist who worked with Maxwell House later in his career, helped to popularize coffee breaks within the American culture.