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Bookmark and Share April 06, 2006 Meal Period Remedy 'Penalty or
Wage'  Under the California Labor Code, any employee you don't
provide with a required meal or rest break must be given one
additional hour of pay for each missed meal or rest break­and
pay for time the employee worked during that period. But a
controversy has emerged over whether this remedy is a penalty or
just wages. To recover a penalty, an employee must file a claim
within 1 year­but an employee has 3, and sometimes 4, years to
lodge a claim for back wages. Plus, a penalty, unlike wages,
isn't subject to income tax withholding.   Several California
appellate courts have come down on opposite sides of the
controversy. Two courts have recently ruled that the remedy is a
penalty, and one said it is actually a form of wages. The
Division of Labor Standards Enforcement, in the proposed­and now
lapsed­meal period regulation it issued last year, sided with
the 'penalty' proponents.  Because