Kentucky bill could end workers’ lunch and rest breaks, slash pay
- Kentucky House Bill 500 could result in employees losing lunch, rest breaks
- Bill's sponsor: It prevents confusion between state and federal law
- Opponents say it further erodes worker protections in Kentucky
WHITESBURG, KY March 21, 2023:
Construction workers lay the foundation for a new home for the Gross family during a new home dedication event in Whitesburg, Kentucky on Tuesday, March 21, 2023.The event was for the dedication of a second home to a family who lost their home during the Kentucky flooding in 2022. Several organizations including EKY flood relief fund came together to build a new home for families.
(Photo by Demetrius Freeman/The Washington Post via Getty Images)
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(NewsNation) — Some workers in Kentucky may be poorer — and hungrier — at their jobs soon if a new bill passes the state’s House of Representatives.
The legislation, House Bill 500, would allow employers to stop offering their workers “reasonable” lunch and rest breaks, mandatory under current Kentucky law, and end the requirement that employees who work seven days in a row receive overtime pay.
Per the Kentucky Lantern, HB 500 also “(prevents) employers from being punished for not paying minimum wage or overtime pay when an employee is traveling to and from a workplace.”
HB 500’s sponsor, GOP state Rep. Phillip Pratt, says he introduced the legislation so that employers no longer have to deal with differences between state and federal law regarding lunch and rest breaks. Currently, federal law does not require employees to receive the breaks.
Opponents of the law argue HB 500 eliminates necessary worker protections.
“Repealing these guardrails will make work more dangerous by depriving workers of time and for food and rest, incentivizing them to travel too quickly to get to their job sites and discouraging them from taking proper precautions at the beginning of the shift,” Dustin Pugel, policy director at the Kentucky Center for Economic Policy, told the Lantern.
The bill passed a Republican-led House committee Wednesday in a party-line vote and now moves to a vote by the full chamber.
Kentucky has been in the spotlight recently for other pieces of legislation scaling back worker protections, including one bill passed by the House removing working hour restrictions for 16 and 17-year-olds, which Pratt said would get children “off the couch [and] quit playing Nintendo games.”
It is also the state where, in May 2023, U.S. Department of Labor investigators discovered two 10-year-old workers operating dangerous cooking equipment while working late shifts at a McDonald’s.