Florida Employment Law

The Fair Labor Standards Act defines the workweek as a fixed and recurring period of 168 hours comprised of seven consecutive 24-hour periods that do not need to coincide with the calendar week. It is adjustable only if the change is designed to be permanent. Each week is considered on its own for purposes of calculating overtime. The hours of two or more weeks may not be averaged.

Time Spent Travelling

Time spent traveling during normal work hours is considered compensable work time. Time spent in home-to-work travel by an employee in an employer-provided vehicle, or in activities performed by an employee that are incidental to the use of the vehicle for commuting, generally is not ‘hours worked’ and, therefore, does not have to be paid.

Manual Laborers 

Ten hours of labor shall be a legal day’s work, and when any person employed to perform manual labor of any kind by the day, week, month or year renders 10 hours of labor, he or she shall be considered to have performed a legal day’s work, unless a written contract has been signed by the person so employed and the employer, requiring a less or greater number of hours of labor to be performed daily.

Unless such written contract has been made, the person employed shall be entitled to extra pay for all work performed by the requirement of his or her employer in excess of 10 hours’ labor daily.

Minor

For Minor Aged 16 to 17 years: They may work up to 30 hours per week. Not before 6:30 a.m. or later than 11 p.m. and for no more than 8 hours a day when school is scheduled for the following day. On days when school does not follow, there are no hour restrictions.

For Minor Aged 14 to 15 years: They may work up to 15 hours per week. Not before 7 a.m. or after 7 p.m. and for no more than 3 hours a day on school days, when a school day follows. May work up to 8 hours on Friday, Saturday, Sunday, and on non-school days, when school days do not follow, until 9 p.m.

Florida has no general provision governing overtime pay, but most employees would be subject to the federal Fair Labor Standards Act, which requires that all nonexempt employees be paid at a rate of one and one-half times their regular rate of pay for all hours worked over 40 in a week.

Ten hours of labor is a legal day’s work for manual laborers. Employees are entitled to extra pay for all work performed in excess of 10 hours daily.

Rest breaks usually lasting less than 20 minutes in 8 hours, must be paid.

Florida does not have any laws requiring an employer to provide a meal period or breaks to employees 18 years of age or older, thus the federal rule applies. The federal rule does not require an employer to provide either a meal (lunch) period or breaks. Meal or lunch periods (usually 30 minutes or more) do not need to be paid, so long as the employee is free to do as they wish during the meal or lunch period.

Florida labor laws require employers to grant a meal period of at least 30 minutes to employees under the age of 18 who work for more than 4 hours continuously. Florida Stat. 450.081(4).

Breast Feeding Breaks 

Employers are prohibited from discriminating against women on the basis of pregnancy-related conditions, including breastfeeding, and are required to make reasonable accommodations for employees who have pregnancy-related limitations. Such reasonable accommodations may include the provision of break time and appropriate facilities for expressing breast milk.