can workers have lunchtime while driving in truck?

ward

ward

Participating member
Location
Unincorporated Clackamas, OR
We do a lot of driving from job to job. Seems like the driver is clearly working and can't take lunch, but the passengers--must they be considered working and unable to take a lunch while they are being driven?

How do others handle this?
 
I always figured if your in my truck, your getting paid. Lunch to me is trucks parked, lounge chairs out.

Although if you want to eat your lunch while in the truck, i can care less.

Where i was working part time years ago the employees had a prob with me and my guy eating in the truck. We didnt take lunch because why just sit there and waste time. I wanted to go home. Boss didnt care. The other guys on a different crew had a problem with it, but those were also the ones who would stop four times an hour to light up a smoke. They didnt like what i had to say to them.
 
That is our current practice as well. I'm start to think like a Taylorist these days and I'm thinking about how to maximize my productivity. Why couldn't guys being driven take lunch while they are being driven off the clock?
 
At my work we rarely stop for lunch and eat on the go (riding or driving) the half hour is not deducted. Where I worked before long ago we did the same, not stop for lunch and write no lunch on the time card. The owner of said company confronted us and asked why we couldn't take lunch while driving from job to job. Make a long story short DON'T nickel and dime your help. We started taking 9:30 fifteen min breaks and lunch 12:00 pm on the dot repelling from trees half done or where ever we were at.
 
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I don't think my foreman was too thrilled...

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I wasn't...kidding!

If my crew slept while I drove I was OK with that. They were a bit more rested and ready to go on the next job. If they nodded off at every break though I was concerned. Too much partying or up too late doesn't mix with treework.
 
Let me press the "driving" vs "being driven" distinction a little further. I'm not interested in nickel and diming my guys, I'm interested in trying to get them to have lunch while there seems to be a slack or down time suited for the lunch break. I think it is important for the driver not to eat while driving, but why can't the crew? A lunch break could be begun while in the truck and finished at the job site, for example. This is simply nodding in the direction of reality--a point which many people have recognized implicitly by their not taking a lunch because they are too busy. Akin to professions in which the lunch break must be taken on the site (a firefighter on the line, a lookout, a guard at a remote outpost, or perhaps a crew on a fishing vessel, for example),I can imagine how taking a lunch break on board a truck (off the clock) is not without reason. As for the restroom breaks, I don't know how the guys are going to like sharing a gatorade bottle...:(
 
Ontario Employment Standards Act requires workers are provided with a 30min eating break after each 5hrs of duty time.

I trust my staff to chose what keeps them healthy and happy - however a half hour must be indicated on a time sheet; beginning, middle, end - doesnt matter, if it isnt shown it will be deducted. So their tendancy is to eat on the run or during travel then mark 4:30pm on their timesheet when they left the yard at 4.

As for sleeping: i couldnt ever stand this when i was leading a crew, drove me batty. I had lots of fun like Brendon. The best fun i ever heard someone did (a fellow Buzzer, as the story goes) was the mouth-agape sleeper was provided with a dollop of tabasco sauce to assist their slumber. Three words for that - HighLarryUs
 
[ QUOTE ]
I always figured if your in my truck, your getting paid. Lunch to me is trucks parked, lounge chairs out.

We didnt take lunch because why just sit there and waste time. I wanted to go home. Boss didnt care. The other guys on a different crew had a problem with it, but those were also the ones who would stop four times an hour to light up a smoke. They didnt like what i had to say to them.

[/ QUOTE ]


While growing up in this field, we seldom stopped for lunch... That was saved for bad weather or if we were rocking on the job and could waste the time. Now, same thing..we really don't stop. Eat when there's a quick opportunity, not sit down and waste the time away.

The smoking thing....now that's pissing me off lately with one guy. Save that rant for a new post.
 
There seems to be the belief that people can work so fast and hard that they do not have time to eat. While this may be true for short periods of time, it strikes me as incredible that a tree worker could claim that he never ate lunch or "didn't have time to eat" on a continual basis, week in and week out. No lunch to me means leave your lunch at the shop and go work all day without food.

The 'no lunch' thing can be a way the employee gouges the company: that's 2.5 hours a week of eating on the company's dime. If the guys get 42.5 hours for the week, well that's OVERTIME pay for eating on the company's dime.

I caught on to the scheme after observing the timecards for months: no lunch taken. But every morning, the cab was piled high with rotisserie chickens, and igloo coolers filled with enormous sub sandwiches, fruits of all kind, tubs of coleslaw and potato salad and tabouli, sausages and pizza cartons, hardboiled eggs, and so forth. I watched as all of these things were loaded into the truck and consumed and yet the timecards reported: No lunch taken.

What had begun as an occasional practice forced upon us by necessity--a major removal with a crane, for example--had now become standard operating procedure. The guys had come to expect that you come to work and eat on the company's dime all the time. What had been an occasional occurrence was now the expected norm.

I ask that they use the 'no lunch' button very judiciously. Its not the normal thing to do.

blush.gif
 
I forgot to mention. The ones complaining were the ones stopping in the morning on comp. time picking up breakfast and lunch as we rolled by going to our job.
 
I think the answer to my question (whether it is possible for non-drivers to take their lunch off the clock while driven) is going to turn on whether during this period they can be considered "completely relieved" of all duties.

so, to rephrase our original question, "can non-drivers be completely relieved of duties while they are being driven?" (i.e., in a typical tree service operation)

What say you....
 
How about giving them the choice, make it up to them, completely voluntary.
They can eat in the back seat and go home :45 early or they can take the :45 on the job and go home :45 later.

Seems like you would avoid any employer mandates and make your guys happy as they get to choose and it is a non-cost to you. Of course it has to be a unanimous and perhaps the drive will have to take his while the guys are working.
 
Looked into it with BOLI. If the employees are in transit between jobs, they must be paid--even if they are eating their lunch. AND, they must be given a meal break apart from this time. You can occassionally have exceptions, but this is the law.

I am curious, though--and maybe YoYo can speak to this--whether industries that are based on travel (airline, rail, fishing) are the same: must employees who are "on board" be paid even if they take a meal break while they are "on board"?
 
Meal Breaks

Massachusetts law states that employees must receive a 30-minute break after six hours of working. An employee must be free to leave the workplace during the break. An employee can voluntarily give up the meal break, but must be paid for all hours worked. Compensation for the 30-minute meal break must be paid if the employee has voluntarily agreed to waive his or her meal break by (1) working through his or her meal break, or (2) remaining on the premises at the request of the employer during the meal break. The break period may be unpaid. Certain exemptions from this requirement can be found in M.G.L. c. 149, s. 101.

This is how it works in Mass.
So the answer would be yes but its voluntary, in mass anyway
 
I get paid lunch and lunch paid for.... Life is good.

I worked for a company several months ago that required mandatory 30 minute unpaid lunch, but you had to remain on the property. I said goodbye to that!!
 
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