Im an hourly employee for a service company, meaning I go from house to house and repair equipment. My company has just changed thier policy on lunches. They now say that if we dont take a lunch they will deduct 30 mins from our time. I have researched the department of labor and they say that time worked can not be deducted, to include lunches or even if your off the clock and performing duties your are to be paid for that time. I have showed them this in the fair labor standards guide. And they say well if it policy then they are allowed to take the money. They also told me they are doing it to help cut overtime. I told them that if we are required to take a lunch it will not cut overtime simply because if we have 9 hours worth of calls for the day then we will still work 9 hours weather we take a lunch or not. It will just get us home 30 mins later. Is there a court case somewhere that anyone knows of that I can show them where lunches taking out where over turned and had to be repaid. In hopes that this will change thier mind on this policy. Oh and by the way I have contacted the department labor on this and the lady I talked to said the employer can take the money, but in thier own policy it say otherwise. Goes to show they dont even follow thier own policies. All Im looking for on this is honest pay for an honest days work. Thanks for the help