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Can they take out meal breaks despite me not taking them?

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patientdouble

New member
I work at a small grocery store in my town in Massachusetts. At the said workplace, Per my workplace contracts, I am entitled to one 15 minutes paid break and one 30 minutes unpaid break per 6 hrs worked.
One of the papers to sign during all of this was a contract where I could waive my right to a lunch which I did do.
Over the course of the next two weeks, I clocked in a few minutes early each day as well as some days clocking out quite late(20 min past closing time despite most days being 5-10 min). I have time stubs for some, but not all days showing me staying excess time on each day.
Well, I near the end of two weeks working there. One day, I am being told I have to go on my break despite me waiving my right. I was then told that despite me waiving my right to this 30 min and working without an unpaid break all previous days, I am told that they can and they will still withhold half an hour of wages from each day. I, of course, got retaliatory and threatened a lawyer if they did this. They apologized and that was that.
This all ended with there not being enough hours for me come the following week but as I received the paycheck this week it was evident that they took out the unpaid breaks from my paycheck despite me working those hours. I also remember the manager specifically telling me that all the contract does is ensure they cannot hold me past closing time if I do not take the lunch which I had to do on every single day that I worked there despite me both clocking in early and clocking out late to help out in the store( few minutes that add up to ~2hrs).
Basically, my question is if I have any recourse I can take against them either for being forcibly held past my 8hr shifts or for wages that were not fully paid to me for hours I did work. I was also never told I was required to take the 30 min break so they basically stole half an hour of my work each day.
They do an automated computer system so any tampering with that leaves traces of edit history if they did try to make it look like I took the breaks.

Edit: fixed my confusion about company vs state laws
 
Last edited:


cbg

I'm a Northern Girl
Pardon me, but MA does NOT require a 15 minute paid break. In fact, no state does, with the exception of an industry specific law in Illinois that actually affects very few employees. MA DOES require a 30 minute unpaid lunch break IF you work 6 hours or more.

If you believe you are not being paid correctly, you can file a wage claim with the state. The law does not care if they keep you past your shift - you will have to show the "contract" to a MA attorney to see what, if any, recourse you have about that.
 

patientdouble

New member
Thanks so much, all the places I had worked at had a 15 min break so I assumed it was a given but I will definitely look into the wage claims since I never took a lunch other than Sunday where I was forced but then worked over for 30 min but still only got paid for 5.5 hrs
 

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