I have been working for the same company for the past four and a half years. since I started with the company we have been essentially given a paid 30 minute break. in fact that policy had been in place with our parent company since the thirties.
I was just informed in a very poor fashion (word of mouth from an evening barista who was informed that if she wanted to take her dinner break then she would be docked pay) that this will immediately cease to be the case and that if we would like to take a lunch we will not be paid. apparently this is ok according to the NY labor laws.
the trouble as I see it with this change is that as a general rule we work as a pair of employees at a time. one barista, and one counter person/ general store clerk. our employees skills are not really interchangeable. under our old policy our employees could go and take a break but needed to remain in the store on-call in the event of a rush and if called on to work you simply got to add another five minutes to the remainder of your break.
given that they are now required to give us a break if we would like one and that if we are not being paid then we can freely leave the shop. that is going to leave our store understaffed. they will in turn need to add another shift of coverage in order to allow both shifts of employees take breaks.
I cannot see how this will result in an increase in profits for the business owners, given the higher staffing requirements as well as the decrease in quality of service from all employees.
help me out and let me know what your shops break policy is.
also if you have any suggestions as to how I should go about bringing up my concerns with the shop owners that would be fantastic. As soon as I heard about the new policy I immediately called our company VP and spoke with her about it. thankfully I was heading out the door and didn;t really have time to say anything that I would really regret, but I need to go into the next convo with a game plan.
chris ganger
cafe manager
ithaca coffee company
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