Dec. 23--Employers in California must give their employees 10 minutes of work-free rest breaks every four hours and can't require them to remain on call and available for duty, the state Supreme Court ruled Thursday.
The 5-2 ruling upheld $90 million in damages for more than 14,000 private security guards employed by ABM Security Services, which required them to keep their pagers and cell phones switched on during rest periods, remain "vigilant" and respond to calls for assistance.
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Reversing an appeals court ruling that overturned the damages, the Supreme Court said that since 1932 California law has required employers to leave workers on their own during the paid 10-minute periods.
"During rest periods employers must relieve employees of all duties and relinquish control over how employees spend their time," Justice Mariano-Florentino Cuéllar said in the majority decision. "A rest period, in short, must be a period of rest."
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Requiring guards or other employees to remain "on call" during rest breaks creates "a broad and intrusive degree of control," Cuéllar said, that prevents workers from taking a walk, making a phone call or pumping breast milk for a newborn child.
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