Workers advocates fear that a proposed change to the California state statute requiring that employers provide 30 minutes off for meals, will leave workers with no lunch break at all. The changes would cut the period during which businesses can be fined for failing to give meal breaks from three years to one. Responsibility for taking a break would also be shifted from the employer to the employee. Proponents of the changes claim that they are just trying to clarify an ambiguous law.
See "Proposed Meal-Break Rules Panned by Worker Advocates", Nancy Cleeland, Los Angeles Times, February 8, 2005