this post was submitted on 20 Feb 2026
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Hi Brenda,
I wanted to reach out regarding a small observation I made in your last email. In telling me how to spend 30 minute meal break and encouraging me to cut it short for the company's benefit, you violated US labor law.
Let's correct this behavior and try to be more mindful of that "our company is not above the law" spirit so we can keep your momentum going in the right direction. :-)
Eric
P. S. I will be retaining this communication in case this remains an issue. Thanks :-)
See, the people that do this shit are well trained though. Brenda didn’t demand that he work during lunch and was in fact clear that he was within his rights to not. Instead, Brenda has simply suggested that it would look better and he would conform better if he worked some unpaid time.
They know how to skirt the law. They can still go fuck themselves though, the gaslighting assholes.
She did also say "correct this behaviour" which is the corpo way of saying "do it or else"
Corpo language is corpo language for a reason though: it is legally safe to deploy. Intent is so very very hard to litigate.
If you were in a jury box and were shown just this message and a note about how he was fired two months later for "not being a team player" you'd infer the intent and vote to hold the company liable for wrongful termination.
Corpospeak keeps a "work through lunch" message from being a self-evident labor law violation even if no adverse action occurrrd. They don't disguise intent if those later bad actions occur
Workplace litigation effectively never gets a jury.
Particularly in countries that allow employers to force arbitration clauses on employees. You don't get a jury, you get an "impartial" arbitrator paid for by the company.
Yep. Frustrating.
Because the company knows it can settle to avoid the Discovery process.
Mastercardery & Visary processes too
That is a bald faced lie.
Doesn't "correct this behavior" very directly imply that the current behavior (in this case, taking your full lunch break) is incorrect and therefore in need of correction, though?
It's one thing to suggest something, but calling it a "correction" changes things, I'd think.
You’d think. Really, you would, I’m not being sarcastic.
I’ve also been around long enough to know that rational doesn’t really apply to corpos. As dumb and as frustrating as this is, I really don’t think this message would be actionable.
Someday an employee is going to sue you and you will lose.
I’m guessing you didn’t actually read my comment at the start here.
No that's not a "safe" way to say this. It's a pretty god damn clear demand
Even here in Texas, I've learned that "let's correct this behavior" can be shown as evidence that you received threats of a personal improvement plan
Ianal but "voluntarily" taking a shorter lunch break is still illegal in some states. In my state, my boss would get in trouble if it could be proven that they knew I wasn't taking the full, mandatory 30 minutes.
Lucky you.
That can be annoying too, I'd rather get home to my family 15 minutes sooner. But of course Brenda isn't offering a short lunch and leave earlier.
And that's why you retain the email. Establishing a pattern makes the specific language less important, although in this case there's a pretty clear implication that the employee will be punished for using their full meal break.
Good luck litigating an implication though. See the “nuh uh” defense success rate.
I'm not saying it's airtight. But the pattern of 'recommendations' certainly helps. It convinced a judge in my friend's wrongful termination case at a big box retailer.
Lol this but CC your state labor board
Imo the move is to respond with a clarifying question about whether the hr person is asking them to cut breaks short while reiterating that asking them to do so is a violation of labor law and document the hell out of it.
If it happens again, then make a complaint with labor. This shows that you are operating in good faith and giving the company a chance to correct before going nuclear, which further strengthens your case if you do have to report.
Sometimes the hr person is just an idiot. I've seen suggestions like this before and it turned out the hr person literally didn't know you can't just arbitrarily deduct wages without explicit permission from the payee (and in some states, not even then).
Reply from state labor board: oh hey sorry yeah turns out there's no laws requiring breaks federally or in then vast majority of states. Maybe find a new job if you don't like it gl bro
HahahahahahHahahahahahahahah*wheeze*HAHHAHAHAHA
There are no US laws requiring work breaks. ~~Less than 10 states~~ edit: around 20 have laws that require one.
In the vast majority of states you could be asked to work a 16 hour shift with zero breaks entirely legally. Most employers do have break policies but it is not law.
The US Department of Labor site lists 20 states and 2 territories.
https://www.dol.gov/agencies/whd/state/meal-breaks
Right you are, I was going on memory.
Though Maryland and Nebraska's laws only apply to a small portion of workers, and many more have broad exemptions.
Still gross.
All 50 states though require you are compensated for your work. So if this is a non-salary position still illegal if the break period is unpaid.
Additionally if his work contract garuntees the break period that still has legal standing
True, however it isn't said in the photo that they should not clock back in.
Employment contracts are extremely rare or non-existent in the US.
Not at all, very common for salary positions
I work salary and in my industry I've never heard of it. I'm sure they exist but I cannot imagine why any company would do it.
Maybe at executive levels?
I'm salaried and part of a union. I have a contract.
Well yeah if you're part of a union maybe.
Unfortunately that's 10% or less of working Americans.
Perhaps you are thinking of contract in too grand a scale, any basic employment agreement stating your hours and company rules is a contract.
Yeah but those are basically useless as they all contain the boilerplate that basically says that they can be changed at any time for any reason without notice. They don't bind the employer in any way.