Is there a legal entitlement to a lunch break in Switzerland?

I block my Outlook agenda every lunchtime to avoid just this sort of invitation.

Indeed - there are some excellent wines coming out of Peissy.

Working in Canary Wharf 2008-2009 a pint at lunch on a Friday was ok ish. Wouldn’t have more than one if the boss was there unless they did.

Peissy wine...really?

Indeed, here it's a pint of red.

Tom

Yes, by Swiss standards they are decent.

There isn't a decent barrique chardonnay and a sweet red that I like.

Well worth a visit on the Fête de St Martin in November.

I tried to explain the concept of Znüüni here to my Maltese Kollegen. It simply did not compute.

In addition to #2 and #3:

The break needs to be roughly in the middle of your work time, with emphasis on "roughly", you need to show some flexibility.

Say you usually work 8:00-17:15 with 45min break from 12:00-12:45 but today there's a meeting from 12:00-13:00. In such a setup you can be expected to take the break either before or after the meeting, the employer OTOH must provide the opportunity to do so.

... as well as allowing another break of 15 minutes, or extending the lunch break to one hour, since the employee is at work for 9 hours or more.

So, seriously, what's the deal with teachers? Is there an actual legal exemption for schools, or are they just taking the piss?

Here they all go home for lunch, same as the kids.

Tom

They're given 8 weeks more annual leave than ordinary mortals to compensate for having to be at work from 8:00-16:00 or even longer.

Joke. Obviously. Well, sort of.

Due to the 45min break, time worked is less than nine hours in my example.

They're probably exempt. Zürich's Lehrpersonalverordnung for instance says the trial period is five months even though the Code of Obligations says the maximum is three months - assuming the former would hold up in court, certainly the teachers association (LCH) would intervene otherwise.

I don't know the sort of annual leaves that are available to teachers here in CH (are we talking primary, secondary, tertiary?).

In defense of teachers at university level, all "leaves" are used for conference travels, and yes, then people try to squeeze a bit of family vacation time in there wherever possible - that usually means that the professor spouse has one schedule, and spouse (plus kids if any) a separate one. That's some "family" vacation I don't miss.

Meetings or seminars during lunch is a bad habit, it happens a lot at university level (well, at least the ones I know of), and hope it doesn't become de rigueur. Worse is when (crap) lunch is provided.

That's not how it works. If the total time spent at work is 9 hours or more, the employee must take a break (or breaks) totalling at least one hour, which means that if s/he is at work for 9.25 hours (as in your example), s/he will be paid for 8.25 hours.

You forgot the usual "and it is not real work but just having fun with kids " comments.

I think the "emergency" meetings when it revolves around some kind of urgent case management can be called up anytime because we have to be available for non-teaching admin time, to my experience. But it shouldn't interfere with the law that insists on breaks. One thing is, it is really difficult to get all people present so lunch time is often the safest bet. Bordeaux or not.

Lunch is probably THE most individual thing in Switzerland.

I experienced everything from "I dont do lunch" over sandwiches, microwave food, take away food, proper lunch food, buffet lunch up to fine dining lunch in my career. Laws are clear, personally never found them enforced though.

Switzerland is kind of weird. Take the workweek in the first place, one get a contract for 41,5 h a week, who and how could account that? Why not declare a round 8h day workweek as the rest of the world (mostly I guess...).

As far as I know public enterprises are not subordinated to OR.

Because that would only be 40hours/week

You're lucky, most people have 42 hours in their contract.

Sit through the meeting and take your lunch break after - or before. Or take two hours the next day, or leave an hour earlier that day or on Friday.

Just do it and don’t announce it or make a fuss about it.