I have had a weird experience with my former employer who
flouted so many labor law regulations during my tenure before I was laid off in
her process to relocate to Texas where the land is affordable, and the labor
regulations are paper thin.
One of the issues is dealing with the policy where you need to clock out to get a drink of water or use the restroom from my former employer. This issue was one that was not part of my state complaint because I did not see any regulations in state law, but I realized that there was relevance in federal regulations in the Fair Labor Standards Act where breaks under 20 minutes are covered.
There is a case that was dealt with in 2017 called Acosta
versus American Future Systems which had a similar situation where they
allowed for unpaid “flex time” for employees to use the restroom, get a drink
of water or have a smoke. If an employee is abusing the regulations of the FLSA
where restroom breaks that should take three minutes end up being sixteen
minutes or the water breaks are too frequent then an employer should discipline
or terminate the employee instead of denying the lost time that the employee is
clocking out for. The case made it where policies American Future Systems used
were illegal contrary to FLSA rules.
The tragedy was that our Surpreme Court of the United States
denied the request to hear this case nationwide in May of 2018, but they let
the decision stand for the local circuit.
I appreciate employers who allow for reasonable restroom
breaks once or twice a day separate from the paid breaks California requires,
but not all employers are sensible creatures. This leads to the case of the
need for regulation.
I am thinking that the Department of Labor blew me off
because I am not a resident of the states that are part of the third judicial circuit
where the decision is moot where I live. However, I do not have the money to
bring a case all the way to the ninth circuit. So, I am looking for one of our
Democratic Party members of congress in California to carry a bill to codify
the decision from the third circuit nationwide.