Requires employers to provide employees with at least a 30-minute break for eight hours of work, unless a collective bargaining agreement otherwise contains a provision for employee meal breaks. (HB29 HD1)

A BILL FOR AN ACT

SECTION 1. The legislature finds that although Act 172, Session Laws of Hawaii 1999, amended the law to make it illegal for an employer to prohibit an employee from expressing breastmilk during any meal period or other break period required by law, neither state nor federal wage and hour laws currently require employers to provide employees over the age of sixteen any meal period or rest break no matter how many consecutive hours they may be required to work. Employees who must work a full day or eight-hour shift or more regardless of age or sex should not be denied a reasonable period of time to rest and consume a meal as is commonly required by other states, such as California, Oregon, and Washington.

The purpose of this Act is to prohibit an employer from requiring an employee to work for more than eight hours continuously without at least a thirty-minute break period.

SECTION 2. Section 378-10, Hawaii Revised Statutes, is amended to read as follows:

"[[]§378-10[] Breastfeeding.] Meal breaks; breastfeeding. (a) No employee shall be required to work more than eight hours continuously without an interval of at least thirty consecutive minutes for a meal period. The meal period shall be provided at the employer's discretion at any time during the employee's continuous duration of work. This subsection shall not apply to any collective bargaining agreement that contains an express provision for employee meal breaks.

(b) No employer shall prohibit an employee from expressing breastmilk during any meal [period or other] break [period] required [by law to be provided by the employer or required by] under this section or an express provision of a collective bargaining agreement[.] that authorizes a meal break. For purposes of this section, "meal period" or "meal break" means any break period in which the employee is provided the opportunity to consume a meal."

SECTION 3. Statutory material to be repealed is bracketed and stricken. New statutory material is underscored.

SECTION 4. This Act shall take effect upon its approval.