Lunch Breaks - Am I breaking the law?

Ocean Breeze

Ocean Breeze

Ocean Breeze

Associate
Joined
1 Jul 2009
Posts
728
Location
Shropshire/Paris
I work 7 hours per day 9-4.30. I am allowed to have a lunch break of 30 or 60 mins. On top of this we get 20 mins paid break, which we can use how we want during the day.

Recently I have not been taking a lunch break and leaving at 4pm. I still use my 20 mins paid break throughout the day. By doing this I gain a whole hour in the evening. I have 4hrs to myself instead of 3.

Some people in the office say this is breaking the law (H&S), but I cannot find anything on the internet to back this up. All I read is if you work more than 6 hours you are ENTITLED to 20 mins break, which I take anyway?? So to me it seems like you have the option to take that lunch break.

I am an office worker.
 
I assume management or whatever are ok with you doing this? in some cases there might be health and safety implications but usually that would only apply to shifts in excess of 8 hours (specific industries aside).

EDIT: They might be confusing the clause:

the break is taken in one go somewhere in the middle of the day (not at the beginning or end)
Click to expand...
- this applies to the employer rather than the employee (if you have a choice when and how you take your breaks) though some companies might not allow you to take your break at the start or end to avoid any potential legal confusion.
 
Last edited:
I do this quite regularly, my office complain occasionally that it may not be convenient but i make my self available should the **** hit the fan and i am needed on site. All they are concerned with is if A. all my work is complete and B. my lunch is logged at some point of the day so the system calculates productivity properly.

Never have they said it is breaking the law for me to have a lunch at the end of a working day.
 
I did a job where I couldn't really take a lunch break during the shift due to the nature of the work. Our shifts all finished an hour early as this was our 'lunch'. Shifts were 7 hours long plus the hour at the end.
 
I thought the h+s thing applied solely to the employer in terms of them being required to give you x amount of breaks for y amount of hours, if you choose to skip that then its your decision.

What you might get is the workplace contract forbidding leaving early for contract reasons, where i work you cant leave early without management consent and whilst theyre reasonable they wont sit and correct the timings for every single day
 
NinjaSeb said:
I work 7 hours per day 9-4.30. I am allowed to have a lunch break of 30 or 60 mins. On top of this we get 20 mins paid break, which we can use how we want during the day.

Recently I have not been taking a lunch break and leaving at 4pm. I still use my 20 mins paid break throughout the day. By doing this I gain a whole hour in the evening. I have 4hrs to myself instead of 3.

Some people in the office say this is breaking the law (H&S), but I cannot find anything on the internet to back this up. All I read is if you work more than 6 hours you are ENTITLED to 20 mins break, which I take anyway?? So to me it seems like you have the option to take that lunch break.

I am an office worker.
Click to expand...


Who cares? If your boss isn't forcing you not to take lunch and you and your boss are happy for you to work through lunch and go home early, then where's the problem?
 
I think managers would prefer us to take a lunch break and they know quite few people do this, they just turn a blind eye.

I was just wondering whether they turn around one day and say what you are doing is illegal. This is what the union rep believes they could do.

Contract does not mention anything about breaks.
 
Last edited:
Depends if you work flexi time. If not I dont expect you are breaking the law because you are using your 20 minute break. I do expect it will be against company policy to leave early.

If it were the case most people at my work (including me) would grab a snack or something, eat it at their desk and leave an hour early
 
The law says you are entitled to a 20 minute break if you work longer than 6 hours. It doesn't say as an employee that you need to take it!

Most contracts specify some requirements around lunch breaks - e.g. my old contract stated something along the lines of "1 hour unpaid for lunch, usually to be taken between 11:30am and 2:30pm" - i.e. in the middle of the working day.

If it ever became a problem, your boss could probably argue it broke some H&S rules and therefore you can't do it.

But really depends on whether any higher-ups ever start to get bothered by this!
 
Your employer and your colleagues might not be happy with it, if it was an option everybody would do it and you would close an hour early.

What makes you so special?
 
The law is that you get a 20 minute uninterrupted break if you work over 6 hours, so as long as you take that break then you are fine in terms of H&S... But then it depends on your employers wishes and what you do for work. If you have to provide a service to someone then leaving early isn't going to work...
 
As long as management is fine with you leaving early and you get that 20 minutes you're all gravy. Don't listen to those haters who are jelly because they can't complete their day without taking a lunch break as well ;)
 
Meh, wouldn't bother me if you worked for me - so long as the work was done and if need be you were available on the odd occasion

Non issue so long as you are producing.

From a company perspective, they are providing what is required, even if you're not using it. So long as you are not in a role where you are using heavy machinery etc it's unlikely ever to become a problem
 
No doubt it'll become a problem if others start doing this because you are and suddenly a lot of the office is finishing at 4pm instead of 5pm.

All it takes is one person to start taking the mick and the rules suddenly come back, i.e smart casual dress code at work until men started wearing sandles to work and suddenly everyone is forced back into shirt and tie.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom