California Legislature—2015–16 Regular Session

Assembly Bill No. 471

Introduced by Assembly Member Harper

February 23, 2015

An act to amend Section 512 of the Labor Code, relating to employment.

LEGISLATIVE COUNSEL’S DIGEST

AB 471, as introduced, Harper. Employment.

Existing law prohibits, subject to certain exceptions, an employer from requiring an employee to work more than 5 hours per day without providing a meal period.

This bill would make a nonsubstantive change to those provisions.

Vote: majority. Appropriation: no. Fiscal committee: no. State-mandated local program: no.

The people of the State of California do enact as follows:

SECTION 1.  

Section 512 of the Labor Code is amended to
read:

512.  

(a) An employer may not employ an employee for a work
period of more than five hours per day without providing the
employee with a meal period of not less than 30 minutes, except
that if the total work period per day of the employee is no more
than six hours, the meal period may be waived by mutual consent
of both the employer and employee. An employer may not employ
an employee for a work period of more than 10 hours per day
without providing the employee with a second meal period of not
less than 30 minutes, except that if the total hours worked is no
more than 12 hours, the second meal period may be waived by
mutual consent of the employer and the employee only if the first
meal period was not waived.

(b) Notwithstanding subdivision (a), the Industrial Welfare
Commission may adopt a working condition order permitting a
meal period to begin delete commence end delete begin insert begin end insert after six hours of work if the
commission determines that the order is consistent with the health
and welfare of the affected employees.

(c) Subdivision (a) does not apply to an employee in the
wholesale baking industry who is subject to an Industrial Welfare
Commission wage order and who is covered by a valid collective
bargaining agreement that provides for a 35-hour workweek
consisting of five 7-hour days, payment of one and one-half times
the regular rate of pay for time worked in excess of seven hours
per day, and a rest period of not less than 10 minutes every two
hours.

(d) If an employee in the motion picture industry or the
broadcasting industry, as those industries are defined in Industrial
Welfare Commission Wage Order Numbers 11 and 12, is covered
by a valid collective bargaining agreement that provides for meal
periods and includes a monetary remedy if the employee does not
receive a meal period required by the agreement, then the terms,
conditions, and remedies of the agreement pertaining to meal
periods apply in lieu of the applicable provisions pertaining to
meal periods of subdivision (a) of this section, Section 226.7, and
Industrial Welfare Commission Wage Order Numbers 11 and 12.

(e) Subdivisions (a) and (b) do not apply to an employee
specified in subdivision (f) if both of the following conditions are
satisfied:

(1) The employee is covered by a valid collective bargaining
agreement.

(2) The valid collective bargaining agreement expressly provides
for the wages, hours of work, and working conditions of
employees, and expressly provides for meal periods for those
employees, final and binding arbitration of disputes concerning
application of its meal period provisions, premium wage rates for
all overtime hours worked, and a regular hourly rate of pay of not
less than 30 percent more than the state minimum wage rate.

(f) Subdivision (e) applies to each of the following employees:

(1) An employee employed in a construction occupation.

(2) An employee employed as a commercial driver.

(3) An employee employed in the security services industry as
a security officer who is registered pursuant to Chapter 11.5
(commencing with Section 7580) of Division 3 of the Business
and Professions Code, and who is employed by a private patrol
operator registered pursuant to that chapter.

(4) An employee employed by an electrical corporation, a gas
corporation, or a local publicly owned electric utility.

(g) The following definitions apply for the purposes of this
section:

(1) “Commercial driver” means an employee who operates a
vehicle described in Section 260 or 462 of, or subdivision (b) of
Section 15210 of, the Vehicle Code.

(2) “Construction occupation” means all job classifications
associated with construction by Article 2 (commencing with
Section 7025) of Chapter 9 of Division 3 of the Business and
Professions Code, including work involving alteration, demolition,
building, excavation, renovation, remodeling, maintenance,
improvement, and repair, and any other similar or related
occupation or trade.

(3) “Electrical corporation” has the same meaning as provided
in Section 218 of the Public Utilities Code.

(4) “Gas corporation” has the same meaning as provided in
Section 222 of the Public Utilities Code.

(5) “Local publicly owned electric utility” has the same meaning
as provided in Section 224.3 of the Public Utilities Code.