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.

In my experience when you loosen the restrictions on specific starting and ending times you get some people who prefer earlier and some people who prefer later and most people will probably be pretty close to traditional most of the time to maintain cooperation across large groups. Sometimes they call it 'core hours' when formalizing it in da rules. When most people are working independently then you can get rid of even that.

That's why most places use "core hours" for varied schedules.

If you need collaboration then you do it from 10 AM to 2 PM. Everyone works those hours whether you leave early, or come in late. Any meetings should happen in those times.

This isn't a difficult problem to solve.

If you can't regularly get your job don't with a few hours of not having immediate assistance - I feel like you probably need to rethink your processes, or who you're employing.

You can be fired without cause. That is in the literal definition of "At will"