Texas 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.

Under state law, an employer may not require any employee to work seven consecutive days in a retail establishment and may not deny an employee at least 24 consecutive hours off for rest or worship in each seven-day period. The time off must be in addition to any regular periods of rest allowed during each work day.

State law also requires that an employer must accommodate an employee’s religious beliefs and practices unless the employer can show that to do so would constitute an undue business hardship. An employer also may not require an employee to work during a period the employee requests to be off to attend one regular worship service a week of the employee’s religion. This does not apply to employees who are part-time, working less than 30 hours or less in a calendar week.

Time Clock Rounding

Many employers do not pay employees according to the exact number of hours and minutes they work, but rather utilize some sort of “rounding” or “roundoff” system whereby a certain interval is set that serves as the minimum block of time that will be recognized as a unit of time worked or not worked. Time missed or worked within that interval will not be deducted from or added to the time worked, whereas time missed or worked outside that interval will result in that interval being deducted from or added to the time worked.

Long Punching of Hours

Where time records show elapsed time greater than the hours actually worked because of reasons such as employees choosing to enter their workplaces before actual starting time or to remain after their actual quitting time, the Compliance Officer shall determine whether any time is actually worked in these intervals. If an employee came in early for personal convenience and did not work prior to the scheduled beginning time, a recording of the fact that the employee worked, for example, 8 hours that day is all that is required.

Sleeping Time

If an employee is on a shift lasting less than 24 hours and is required to be on duty during such a shift, she will be considered as working during the entire time, even if permitted to sleep during such time or engage in personal activities, such as eating meals, when not busy.

If an employee is on duty for a shift of 24 hours or more, the employer and employee may agree to exclude from hours worked the time spent in meal breaks and in “bona fide regularly scheduled sleeping periods”, but there is a limit of eight hours on the amount of time that can be excluded as sleeping time.

Texas has no general provision governing overtime pay, but most employees would be subject to the federal Fair Labor Standards Act, which requires that all work in excess of 40 hours per week be paid at a rate of one-and-one-half times the employee’s regular rate of pay.

A retail employer must allow full-time employees (defined in the following statute as those who work more than 30 hours in a week) at least one 24-hour period off in seven, i.e., each week, the employee must be allowed to have a day off.

Rest or coffee breaks, defined as 20 minutes or less, are compensable hours worked since they are regarded as being for the benefit of both the employer and the employee. Smoking breaks are not required under Texas or federal law, but if a company allows such breaks, they count as rest breaks. Companies can adopt whatever policies they want to with regards to smoking breaks.

No matter how many rest/coffee/smoking breaks an employee takes, they are compensable, even if the employee took more breaks than allowed. Unlike ordinary coffee or rest breaks, do not need to be compensated, so the company can have a policy requiring employees to clock out and then back in for such breaks.

Meal breaks are not compensable, as long as they are at least 30 minutes in length and the employee is completely relieved from duty for the purpose of eating a regular meal. Shorter meal breaks may be considered valid under special circumstances. Such breaks are a matter of company policy. Since they are optional, an employer can allow meal breaks, or not. If meal breaks are allowed, the employer can impose conditions on them, such as when they occur, how long they are, where they may or may not be taken, and whether any particular consumables are disallowed (such as alcoholic beverages).

Under state law, an employer may not require any employee to work seven consecutive days in a retail establishment and may not deny an employee at least 24 consecutive hours off for rest or worship in each seven-day period. The time off must be in addition to any regular periods of rest allowed during each workday.

State law also requires that an employer must accommodate an employee’s religious beliefs and practices unless the employer can show that to do so would constitute an undue business hardship. An employer also may not require an employee to work during a period the employee requests to be off to attend one regular worship service a week of the employee’s religion. This does not apply to employees who are part-time, working less than 30 hours or less in a calendar week.

Breast Feeding Break

The federal statute indicates that the break must be allowed each time such employee has the need to express the milk’ states that employers are required to provide a reasonable amount of break time to express milk as frequently as needed by the nursing mother. The frequency of breaks needed to express milk, as well as the duration of each break, will likely vary. The burden of challenging how much time a nursing mother needs for such a purpose would be on the employer. For most people, the frequency of such breaks would decline in the natural course of events, so they should not be too difficult to accommodate. A nursing mom has the right to a private, non-restroom place where the employee will not be disturbed while expressing the milk.

Employees who use their regular paid rest breaks for nursing/expression of breast milk would be paid for those breaks just like any other employee. In terms of total work time for the shift, the employee may need to either arrive earlier or stay longer to work a certain number of hours, or else experience a slight reduction in pay due to having unpaid nursing/breast-pumping breaks during the day and not being able to arrive earlier or stay later to make up the time.