From the Western Region-Joint Council #37 Package Rider, Art. 1 Sect. 4---Full Time Employee Lunch and Coffee Break--
"Full time employees shall receive a one (1) hour unpaid lunch period and shall schedule and complete said lunch hour between the fourth (4th) and sixth (6th) hour of work. The Company may require or permit a full-time employee to take a one-half (1/2) hour lunch period, provided the operational needs of the Company are met. Management shall not arbitrarily require employees to take a lunch period which would conflict with the provisions of this article."
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Translation; The employee can decide for himself whether or not to take a 1/2 vs. a full hour lunch as long as service is not negatively affected, and the company cannot arbitrarily force drivers to take a full hour in the hopes that they will skip part of it to get home earlier.
The intent of the language....as was personally explained to me by a member of the negotiating committee who helped to draft it.....was to ensure that every driver would have the opportunity to take at least a 1/2 hr lunch break in the middle of the day. The intent was to prevent the company from loading up a route with so many businesses that the driver would be forced to take lunch in the evening in order to make service.
It was not intended to force drivers into taking a full hour. And it was not intended prohibit a driver from taking lunch later in the day if that is his preference and it isnt being done to compensate for an excessive dispatch.
I normally take my lunch at noon, and I almost always take half an hour. But there have been days where I have gone to a doctor appointment on my lunch hour and had to take it at a time other than specified by the contract. There have also been days where I have taken it at the end of the day so that I could help coach my sons soccer team or see one of his games at a field on my route. Neither of these actions violate the intent of the language.
There are two seperate issues concerning lunch....whether or not it is taken, and whether or not the employee is fully compensated for all hours worked. The goal of the company has always been to coerce the employee into working thru his lunch while recording a full hour in order to reduce paid hours, with compensation for this free labor supposedly taking place in the form of "bonus".
I refuse to work for free and I refuse to falsify a timecard. On the rare occasions when personal circumstances have forced me to skip my lunch, my timecard accurately reflects that fact.
