Lab. Code, § 512.1 · Chapter 1. General
Lab. Code, § 512.1
Text — As published in the Legislative Counsel's database, tables dated October 18, 2026 (pubinfo_2025.zip)
(a) An employee directly employed by an employer shall be entitled to one unpaid 30-minute meal period on shifts over 5 hours and a second unpaid 30-minute meal period on shifts over 10 hours, as provided by Section 512.
(1) The employee may waive a meal period in accordance with subdivision (a) of Section 512 and paragraph (D) of Section 11 of Wage Order Number 4 or paragraph (D) of Section 11 of Wage Order Number 5 of the Industrial Welfare Commission.
(2) On-duty meal periods may be provided in accordance with paragraph (A) of Section 11 of Wage Order Number 4 or paragraph (A) of Section 11 of Wage Order Number 5 of the Industrial Welfare Commission.
(b) An employee who is directly employed by an employer shall be entitled to a rest period based on the total hours worked daily at the rate of 10 minutes net rest time per 4 hours or major fraction thereof, as provided by Wage Order Number 4 and Wage Order Number 5 of the Industrial Welfare Commission.
(c) If an employer fails to provide to an employee a meal period or rest period in accordance with this section, the employer shall pay the employee one additional hour of pay at the employee’s regular rate of compensation for each workday that the meal or rest period is not provided.
(d) This section does not apply to an employee directly employed by an employer who is covered by a valid collective bargaining agreement that provides for meal and rest periods, and, if the employee does not receive a meal or rest period as required by the agreement, includes a monetary remedy that, at a minimum, is equivalent to one additional hour of pay at the employee’s regular rate of compensation for each workday that the meal or rest period is not provided.
(e) As used in this section:
(1) “Employee” means an employee who provides direct patient care or supports direct patient care in a general acute care hospital, clinic, or public health setting.
(2) “Employer” means the state, political subdivisions of the state, counties, municipalities, and the Regents of the University of California.
(3) “General acute care hospital” means a health facility as defined in subdivision (a) of Section 1250 of the Health and Safety Code.
Notes and commentary — not statutory text
History
Added by Stats. 2022, Ch. 845, Sec. 2. (SB 1334) Effective January 1, 2023.
Source of truth
- Edition
- As published in the Legislative Counsel's database, tables dated October 18, 2026 (pubinfo_2025.zip)
- Official file
- https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/codes_displaySection.xhtml?lawCode=LAB§ionNum=512.1.
- Text hash
- sha256 b25d9e51e525f841bbddbccf49c16aa97b5478b29088cdbe2ba317d5957089e9
- Composed by
- compose_ca.py 2026-10-22: the Legislative Counsel's CAML content files read by a tokenizer (caml_readers.reader_a); an independent xml.etree reading (caml_readers.reader_b) agrees on every section
This section cites
Provisions in this library that the text above cites, as it prints each citation. A range cited as “ss. 61.13-61.16” links its first and last provisions.
Health and Safety Code
Labor Code
Procedural information only. Not legal advice and not a substitute for the advice of an attorney. Confirm the current text with the official publisher before relying on it.