Your right to lunch
Many employees are unsure when it comes to the question of whether and to what extent they are entitled to a lunch break. The labor law makes clear regulations. You can read about them in this article.
Employees have a legal right to a lunch break
- The legal right to a lunch break results from the labor law. According to Section 4 of the Working Hours Act (ArbZG), employees who work six to nine hours a day are entitled to a break of at least 30 minutes.
- Exceeds the working time nine hours, the employer must even allow a break of at least 45 minutes.
- These legally prescribed breaks can be divided into time segments of 15 minutes each, shorter break times are not provided for by law.
- Longer break times are negotiable as part of the employment contract. However, since breaks are generally not remunerated, a deviating regulation is usually not in the interests of the employee.
Separate smoking breaks are not regulated in the labor law
- There is no provision in the labor law for short smoking breaks. Often, however, such short interruptions to work are tolerated by the employer.
- As for lunch breaks, the same applies to smoking breaks that the employee is not entitled to any remuneration, which means that the additional break must be stamped out.
- Smoking breaks that last less than 15 minutes may not replace the legally prescribed break due to the regulations according to ยง 4 ArbZG.
Statutory lunch break - useful information for employers
Sleeping, shopping or surfing on Facebook, employees would like to do all of this in ...
The employer must enable the break times to be adhered to
- From the regulations of the labor law, the employer is obliged to encourage his employees to observe the break times. If this is not done, or if the employer even demands that the legally prescribed breaks be worked through, he faces fines of several thousand euros.
- However, the employer can define the break times, taking into account the provisions of Section 4 ArbZG.
The employee can organize the lunch break himself
- During the break, employees are not subject to the employer's right to issue instructions. This means that the employee can basically organize his lunch break freely.
- When organizing the break, however, it is important to ensure that no company agreements such as B. Prohibition of private internet use are violated.
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