What states are allowing drivers to skip their lunch hour?

UpstateNYUPSer(Ret)

Well-Known Member
I am also on lunch right now, sitting in my recliner in my air conditioned condo, watching Sports Center.

We are not authorized to use 05 without permission which is rarely if ever granted.

We have a couple of runner/gunners who would be in for a huge wake-up call if mgt ever decided to audit their delivery records/meal times.
 

rocket man

Well-Known Member
Now from what I understand when you skip your lunch you still get payed , they don't dock your lunch and you worked for free if you work 9 hours you get paid 9
bull sh.......................... only if you code 05 witch is cover driver or you code for saftey then you and your on road are doing a integrity violation.
that means and shows the center needs one less driver i hope they pick you! wake the friend,,,,, up
 

Rob12693

Member
Here are the facts over the past four weeks since the California Supreme Court ruling.

1. Employers can no longer discipline employees for working through lunch. Employers MUST offer the lunch hour, but employees don't have to take it.

2. Stopping for a 15 minute paid break, or going to the bathroom, is different than not stopping for a 1 hour meal period (lunch). I still take my paid breaks.

3. I have personally skipped my entire lunch hour at least six times, and I have NOT 'code 05'. I have notified management when I was working without punching out for lunch, and have confirmed they did not take the hour out of my pay.

4. I am a driver that is on the 9.5 list, or at least they avoid making me go over 9.5 so I don't get on the list. This means that they can put enough work on me to keep me out til 7pm (8:30am start time), and they do. I do NOT run! If I work straight through my lunch, this enables me to be off the clock by 6pm.

May not mean much to some of you, but I have a girlfriend that needs to see me besides just on weekends. She goes to work at 8pm, which means she leaves her house at 7:15pm. When I take my lunch hour, I don't get to see her cause the company keeps me out til 7pm. But when I work thru my lunch hour, I do.
Just being able to see her for one hour, and eat dinner with her helps to keep our relationship alive. I already lost (divorce) a wife to this job, and worked late for 18 years while my son grew up without me, making his own dinners and putting himself to sleep at night. This time around I'm doing something about it. Why should I have to find some place to sit in temperatures ranging between 95 and 110 degrees in California heat for an UNPAID hour?? When I can keep working and be off an hour earlier, for the exact same amount of pay??

I'm still going to be on the 9.5 list, so they can't add extra work. It's just that 9.5 comes at 6pm now. It also creates a burden for them because now they have to find a driver that much earlier in the day that will be able to come take work off me in the event I'm not going to stay under 9.5 (which is often). Thereby, they might start lowering my stop count at the center in the morning, instead of waiting to find a driver who ran all day.

So, please set emotion aside about the disadvantages of working thru lunch, or just taking a 30 minute lunch. I'm a huge union guy, and have stood up for my union rights more than 98% of the pro-union guys. How many guys do you know that were arrested for activities during the UPS strike of 1997? I was. I also hand out 340 methods to fellow drivers and stress the importance of following them, specifically following 'trace'. I have been threatened with discipline for following the 'trace' and faced discharge for not delivering section 8 business out of order. If that doesn't make sense to anyone then you should read the methods. It is their job to make sure my route is setup to follow sections 1 thru 8 in that order.. not my job to go to the back of the truck and fix their mistakes or goofy splits.

So, please, can we stop the union arguments and just focus on the original question? I'm trying to determine if UPS is openly practicing discrimination by allowing some drivers to work through their lunch without discipline, while enforcing a lunch hour rule (that doesn't exist) for others. If I can get a list of drivers, or regions that have relaxed rules for lunch hours, then I can take that to a California Labor attorney and work towards changing the rules here in our state. If successful, and other drivers see that guys like me are getting off the clock by 6pm, with FULL pay, then maybe they will also be willing to sign the 9.5 list. It's a good incentive. You want more drivers to be back on the road... get everyone to sign the 9.5 list! That will do more for job creation than yelling at some guy for working thru his lunch.
 

Backlasher

Stronger, Faster, Browner
?

What is so wrong with taking Lunch.

If you don't take you don't take Lunch then don't put it in board because a fake Lunch = half hour + unpaid work, If entered, Falsified DOCUMENTATION cause it makes you look faster then you really are, and you contribute in Screwing up time allowance and being restricted to more work in less time cause it looks like you are running faster then you are.

If you don't take Lunch , then don't put it in and be ready to get reemed out next morning and you deserve it .

Simple fix, take a real Lunch and if your time allowance keeps that from happening, well, screw it. Take Lunch because we all need and half 2 !!!!!!! Don't screw the next guy that gets your route by increasing sphor with a fake Lunch !!!!!! That's what management is for .
 

Indecisi0n

Well-Known Member
?

What is so wrong with taking Lunch.

If you don't take you don't take Lunch then don't put it in board because a fake Lunch = half hour + unpaid work, If entered, Falsified DOCUMENTATION cause it makes you look faster then you really are, and you contribute in Screwing up time allowance and being restricted to more work in less time cause it looks like you are running faster then you are.

If you don't take Lunch , then don't put it in and be ready to get reemed out next morning and you deserve it .

Simple fix, take a real Lunch and if your time allowance keeps that from happening, well, screw it. Take Lunch because we all need and half 2 !!!!!!! Don't screw the next guy that gets your route by increasing sphor with a fake Lunch !!!!!! That's what management is for .

You said "half 2."
 

Rob12693

Member
Sigh... it's not about entering a lunch in the DIAD, then working thru it. It's about not taking a lunch at all, and being paid for all hours worked.

It's not about taking on extra work, or making numbers look better, or screwing the next guy. It's about being on the 9.5 list and being able to clock off at 6pm, as opposed to 7pm. Same number of stops, same hours worked, just getting home an hour earlier. In other words, I'll make exact same amount of money clocking off at 6pm, as the guy that clocked off at 7pm. I don't have an incentive route. The difference is, I won't have to sit somewhere for an hour unpaid, in California heat.

If anything, the guy covering my route is screwed because he's not on the 9.5 list.
 

Rob12693

Member
it appears some of you guys don't understand the new California ruling.

Perhaps this will help.

[h=2]California’s Brinker Case is Finally Decided[/h]May 23, 2012HR That WorksLeave a comment

By now you may have heard that the California Supreme Court finally decided the Brinker case, ruling in favor of employers. It concluded that an employer’s obligation is to relieve its employees of all duty, with the employee thereafter at liberty to use their rest or meal period for whatever purpose he or she desires. The employer need not ensure that no work is done. Thankfully for California employers the court ruled that you can treat employees like the adults they are supposed to be! Here’s the bottom line to a decision that took much too long to come to such a commonsense conclusion:

  1. You have to offer rest and meal breaks.
  2. It’s up to employees to take them.
  3. Your managers can’t dissuade employees from taking their breaks.
  4. If they can’t take the break, you pay a one-hour penalty.


  1. This means that California employees can now work through their lunch, and the employer CANNOT discipline them.
 

feeder05

Well-Known Member
In Washington State we are required to start our lunch by the 5th hour... we can a 30 minute lunch if we like or are instructed too. They have been issuing warning letters to drivers for starting our lunch beyond the 5th hour.
 

UPSGUY72

Well-Known Member
I am also on lunch right now, sitting in my recliner in my air conditioned condo, watching Sports Center.

We are not authorized to use 05 without permission which is rarely if ever granted.

We have a couple of runner/gunners who would be in for a huge wake-up call if mgt ever decided to audit their delivery records/meal times.

Management doesn't care if you take you lunch or not as long as it's in the board... IF they cared if your took you lunch the DIAD would shut off when you started taking you lunch and turn back on when your lunch time ended.
 

OVERBOARD

Don't believe everything you think
Here in Massachusetts if we are told to run our lunch we get a paid 20 min break, to be taking between 4th and 5th hour, but that will never happen. They always deduct the hour lunch out of our day. It does matter if you take it not, someone is always checking to same sure you put the hour in the diad. I've done this twice where I would need to get done early for my son baseball game, I would request a eight hour day, I wouldn't take a lunch. I get it done in 7 hrs., tell the oms when I punch out that I want a guarantee 8 hrs..
 

UPSGUY72

Well-Known Member
If you are punched in on 06 code in your DIAD they automatically take an hour lunch out of your pay even if you don't put it in under break time. If your on 05 then you get paid for the entire day without taking lunch.

I say who cares. If guys are dumb enough to skip their lunch the. Let them. This way they will get hurt and then I can get a set route!

Wrong....

06 just means your guaranteed 8 hrs. 05 is hours worked. If your enter 06 and don't put in your lunch you come up on a list and management has to go back and change your time card to show your lunch was taken. This is why if you SUP says he'll pay your lunch they tell you to just put in 5 or 10 min. so you won't show up on the no lunch list. If you enter 05 you could still enter a lunch and still will not get paid the time you put in as a lunch.
 

Omega man

Well-Known Member
I don't understand why anyone would skip their lunch, even if they pay you, besides an emergency. By doing this you invite more work on the car because you are showing UPS that it can get done. Skipping lunch during peak is worst of all. Take your lunch and bring the work back if you can't make curfews. Almost every contract has lunch language that has been added by our Union for the protection of the worker. Soon, skipping lunch entirely will be a D.O.T. violation if at least a 30 minute break hasn't been taken sometime in the first 8 hours of working. This was added to guard against driver fatigue.
 

Rob12693

Member
I don't understand why anyone would skip their lunch, even if they pay you, besides an emergency. By doing this you invite more work on the car because you are showing UPS that it can get done. Skipping lunch during peak is worst of all. Take your lunch and bring the work back if you can't make curfews. Almost every contract has lunch language that has been added by our Union for the protection of the worker. Soon, skipping lunch entirely will be a D.O.T. violation if at least a 30 minute break hasn't been taken sometime in the first 8 hours of working. This was added to guard against driver fatigue.

Again, I am on the 9.5 list. Or I should say, that so far I'm not on it this year, because they have kept me under 9.5 hours each day to keep me from going on it again. However, they put enough work on me to keep me out til 7pm. If they dropped the work load down so I could be off by 5:30pm (with a 1 hour lunch) then this would not be an issue.

My point is, they are not going to add work if I choose to work thru my lunch meal, because they still need to keep me under 9.5 hours with or without a lunch. The only difference is that I reach 9.5 hours by 6pm instead of 7pm. Same amount of work, same amount of paid hours. Nothing different. Is this so difficult to understand? None of this applies to peak season. I will take my 1 hour lunch meal, and my second 30 min meal period after 10 hours.

If the union really wants to put drivers back to work they would be pushing the 9.5 list on to everyone. They would come into every building and demonstrate the benefits of as many people as possible getting on the list. In my center, out of roughly 90+ drivers, there are less than 5 of us interested in the 9.5 list. This is a whole other topic, but I've come to realize that UPS drivers aren't really interested in supporting their union, or helping out other union drivers. Therefore, I'm to a point where I'm done looking out for the other guys, and it's time to start worrying about me. This mean putting in fewer hours and having some sort of life outside of work.
 
July 1st 2013 the law changes and everyone will be required to take a lunch. If you think someone isn't you can drop a dime and call the dot. Ups will discipline us if in means no fines.
 

soberups

Pees in the brown Koolaid
Here in Oregon the company is required to pay us based upon what we enter in the DIAD. If we enter zero lunch, then no time is subtracted from our paid day and we are fully compensated for all hours worked. Supposedly they are not supposed to allow us to skip lunch, and if you do it on any kind of a regular basis you will get talked to, but its one of those things you can get away with from time to time. I have found that it is better to beg for forgiveness than to ask for permission, so if I have something going on after work that I need to get done early for I just go ahead and do it.
 

Backlasher

Stronger, Faster, Browner
I guess if not taking break, you don't enter break, and are not deducted time for brak, then it's understandable , if management allows.

My problem is skipping lunch and still being deducted lunch while also having lunch time deduction making drivers look faster and screwing up time allowance and increasing stops as a result. But we bust our butts and should at least get a 20 min lunch to reset, collect ourselves.

"half 2", LoL.
 

kingOFchester

Well-Known Member
Anyone else find it ironic that UPS preaches safety, but yet according to Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration taking a 30 minute break greatly reduces accidents?

Research with
drivers and in other industrial sectors
indicates that the risk of accidents falls
substantially after a break, with off-duty
breaks providing the greatest reduction
in risk.
 

Indecisi0n

Well-Known Member
Wrong....

06 just means your guaranteed 8 hrs. 05 is hours worked. If your enter 06 and don't put in your lunch you come up on a list and management has to go back and change your time card to show your lunch was taken. This is why if you SUP says he'll pay your lunch they tell you to just put in 5 or 10 min. so you won't show up on the no lunch list. If you enter 05 you could still enter a lunch and still will not get paid the time you put in as a lunch.

Lets fight over it.
 
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