Nope! The only laws that really apply to those are which breaks are paid and which are not. If you are given any breaks, 20 minutes or less must be paid and count towards OT. Anything over can be off the clock.

Breaks are unpaid because that was another way to minimize what workers have to be paid.

Businesses always look for ways to pay their employees less and only change practices when forced.

Without strong unions and support from politicians things tend to get worse and worse.

Too bad that we have neither.

Yeah thats my job. If you have an incident and we check your vehicle logs and you arent taking your breaks its an automatic write up. Because nationally its been proven that drivers who DO take their breaks have less incidents.

America is not the norm, dude.

With or without, that right is still due to Union actions my friend

Again, check local laws, but in general you can be fired for cause (meaning no unemployment insurance eligibility) for violating company policy. So "legally" might be wrong but "had to clock out (if you want to keep working here)" might be accurate.

the boss makes a dollar,
I make a dime.
that's why I shit on company time.

Seriously though, I really hate that managers hate employees leaving early. Just how controlling do you want to be? Employees are not kids.

In "at will" states in the US, you can be fired without cause and without notice. So do your homework before you decide not to follow company policy.

I've always been in an "at will" state (Arkansas) and my more recent firing was without cause and without notice. But, since it wasn't for cause, I was/am eligible for unemployment insurance.

I'm not claiming, because I can't actually accept any job offer, due to the constraints of familial duties, and Arkansas requires you accept an offer when you on UI. (I think there are conditions where you can reject, but I've not read the statues, just the guidelines published by the relevant Arkansas government department, which aren't that explicit.)

It's about power.

but it only becomes normalized because workers fail to hold the line. the rich business owners in charge have been busting unions and brainwashing people with anti-union propaganda for decades.

Unions have been attempted more times than they've succeeded, not because of workers failing, but because powerful people have power and will do whatever dirty tactics they can to keep it.

In my state in my career path at least the lunch is just used to keep is there for longer operational hours. They want us there 9 but pay for 8 and say we have an hour lunch, that way we're 8 to 5 instead of 9-5.

In California, when you take your lunch is also mandated by the law. So even if your employer was okay with the idea, you still have to take it before your 5th working hour.

Yep. While negotiating our last CBA I brought this up as an option. The union told me we're not even allowed to voluntarily wave our lunch break.

This is false. You cannot be fired without reason, you can be fired for any legal reason which will vary from state to state, which may be more strict (for employers) than federal law.

I lead small teams doing construction/remodel type work.

It gets real screwy when people start leaving at different times. Those who take lunch end up stuck with extra clean up or fixing last minute issues that pop up.

It also sucks when the office folk leave early and we're stuck in the field with questions or issues that they need to decide on.

Once in a while, it doesn't matter, but every day of people working slightly different schedules gets annoying.

For independent work, yeah its ridiculous people are forced to work specific hours for no reason.

Because unions stopped shooting back and bombing. Because when cops and Pinkertons shoot strikers the state turns a blind eye.

Well then it's not yours. And it should be paid. If the labour regulations say you have to take an unpaid break, the labour regulations are bad.

When I worked for a big game studio, we had a clan, as did many of the other big studios in the country. Every lunch we'd join the same servers. Battlefield, TF2, StarCraft... good times. Well, good lunch times.