Meal periods of not less than 30 minutes must be provided to non-exempt employees who work 6 or more hours in one work period. No meal period is required if the work period is less than 6 hours. Additional meal periods are required to be provided to employees who work 14 hours or more. (See chart at the end of this fact sheet.)
Ordinarily, employees are required to be relieved of all duties during the meal period. Under exceptional circumstances, however, the law allows an employee to perform duties during a meal period. When that happens, the employer must pay the employee for the whole meal period.
What are the basic requirements for rest periods under Oregon law?
Oregon law requires an employer-paid rest period of not less than 10 minutes for every segment of four hours or major part thereof (two hours and one minute through four hours) worked in one work period.
This time must be taken in addition to and separately from required meal periods. The rest period should be taken as nearly as possible in the middle of the work segment. It is prohibited for an employer to allow employees to add the rest period to a meal period or to deduct rest periods from the beginning or end of the employee’s work shift.
Rest break exemptions: An employer is not required to provide a rest period to an employee when ALL of the following conditions are met:
- the employee is 18 years of age or older;
- the employee works less than five hours in any period of 16 continuous hours;
- the employee is working alone;
- the employee is employed in a retail or service establishment (e.g., a place where goods and services are sold to
- the general public, not for resale; and
- when the employee must leave the assigned station to use the restroom facilities.
For example, say an employee works exactly two hours, from 9:00 AM to 11:00 AM. Since these two hours are not the “major portion” of four hours, the employer does not need to provide the employee with a rest period.
If the employee works 2½ hours, however, from 9:00 AM to 11:30 AM, these 2½ hours would be the major portion of four hours, and the employer would be required to provide one 10-minute rest period approximately in the middle of the work period.
An employee who works from 8:00 AM to 5:00 PM and takes a 30-minute unpaid meal period at noon is entitled to two 10-minute paid rest breaks. The work period is 8½ hours, with two work segments of four hours or more, therefore, the employee should receive one rest break at approximately 10:00 AM, and another at approximately 2:45 PM. An employee who works a work shift longer than 10 hours is entitled to a third rest break.
