I wish!
It's fine, I was expecting a bit of teacher bashing along the way!
Seeing how many parents cannot wait to have their kids back at school after a WHOLE week spent with them, I wonder why there always seems to be a shortage of teachers (in the public sector, anyway)
It is always "crap", i.e. a sandwich with tired looking salad and salami with cheese, ham with cheese or one of the above with the cheese. I always bring my own if I've had sufficient notice, while silently cursing and wishing I were with all the patrons enjoying a fondue in a nice restaurant...all those doing a "proper 10 hour day"!
Go for this then
Actually the measure is hours worked (clocked if you do). The difference between start and end time is meaningless.
Well, that's totally incorrect, but there's nothing to gain by arguing with you. I set out the criteria in an earlier post; if you have a reference to show me where I was wrong, please link to it.
To make it simple, if you arrive at work at 08:00 and leave at 17:15 (total elapsed time, 9.25 hours), you are legally required to have taken breaks totalling one hour. Even if you took less than an hour, you'd be paid for 8.25 hours (if you're paid by the hour). If you took a longer break, you'd be paid for the time worked; so if you took breaks totalling, say, 2 hours, you'd be paid for 7.25 hours in this example.
https://www.ch.ch/de/wie-lang-darf-i...-pause-machen/
Breaks are not worktime. Only if the worktime is 9 hours or more you must have a total of 60 minutes breaks.
In your example a single 30 minute break is enough. As the total worktime would be 8.55.
Correct, agreed.
I don't think that's correct. Where in your link does it say this? (By the way, I think you're confusing decimals with minutes -- where 0.25 hours = 15 minutes or if you like, 0:15).
Correct 8.75 Worktime. 0.5 Break
That breaks are not part of the worktime and do not trigger longer break times should be clear and logical in the following situation:
Some works 8.45h (decimal) and does one 0.5 break. Total 8.55 at work. All good, correct?
Now someone works 8.45 and does a 0.6 break. In your understanding of the situation this extra 0.1 break would mandate another 0.4 break. More breaks because you did longer breaks? That does simply not make sense at all. Only actual time when you work is relevant. Also work break means a break from work. No one can call you or expect anything from you during break time. It is your very own time, you can sleep, go for a walk, to the gym, whatever you want as long as you are able to work afterwards.
Hang on, this is worse than the hours & minutes/decimal confusion! 8.45 + 0.5 equals 8.95 in my book. But anyway, total time of 8.95 hours at work requires 0.5 hours break, and that's been taken, so all good. The employee will be paid for 8.45 hours.
Now the second example: 8.45 + 0.6 equals 9.05. That requires a break of 1.0 hours. The employer will "correct" the 9.05 hours to 8.05 (+ 1.0 unpaid break -- even though only 0.6 hours were taken). The employee will be paid for 8.05 hours.
That's how it is. It's unfair on those working just over the amount of time at each cut-off point, but those are the rules.
That makes no sense at all to me.
If the 0.6 is a break there is no need for a break time totalling an hour since the working time did not exceed nine hours and the employer should just pay the 8.45
And can we just use normal time notations like 8:00 or 0:30 or whatever time we want to express, some people find it to confusing to use decimals for time given previous postings.
Depends on the Job
A average office job, yeah sure, no problem. If you work in a supermarket there is no taking a walk for half an hour you are expected to jump in if the row at the cash register gets suddenly large and finish your sandwich later.
Extra 0.1 should be extra 0.05
Actually it should not depend on the job. If this is a regular occurrence that lunch breaks of employees get interrupted the employer has a problem with planing. Also if your 30 min lunch break gets interrupted you still have an entitlement for a 30 min uninterrupted lunch. Still unpaid tough.
Exactly because of that it is not like you think it is. It would be a nightmare if break hours are part of the working hours. If we would follow your logic thoroughly we must also apply it to the weekly work hour cap of 45h. A worker with a 42h work week could, according your logic, not make long 1h lunch breaks.
Also you can not just dock some work hours and make them unpaid to compensate for total break duration. Although that is what some time sheet software do to enforce the 30min lunch break it is wrong and not according to the law.
It's not how I thnk it is, but how HR in my company says it is...
... which is probably to do with this...!
Sorry to say this, but either you misunderstood HR, or your HR department has no clue about the law.
Break time is not to be considered working time, and a total break of 1 hour is only demanded when the daily labour time exceeds nine hours.
This besides some other issues like that break time counts as working time when one is not allowed to leave the working place, and if it is incidental than there is also no need to do this but one can just write overtime and all is fine.
Source: https://www.ch.ch/de/wie-lang-darf-i...-pause-machen/
Given the sources this should not even be a discussion.
If one is not allowed to leave the working space the lunchtime is to be considered labour time and thus must be paid. This is the situation at for example factories.
Having previously worked for a company where HR knowingly supported the illegal OT policy, I would be careful about taking their word as gospel!
If you can not leave your workplace it is not considered lunchtime. But you must do lunchtime, one can not forbid you to leave the workplace during proper lunchtime.
https://www.entsendung.admin.ch/cms/...eitregelung_en
Clarification and definition of work premises can be found in:
https://www.seco.admin.ch/dam/seco/d...1_art18_de.pdf
@22 yards if still in doubt about what now three people are telling you after consulting various sources, you are more than free to contact the SECO to get a final ruling on this topic. Now it is your burden to show us we are wrong.
Get a SAD lamp and every day'll be sunny!
Yes it is considered a break, and yes they can forbid you to leave the workplace, and yes this happens more than you might think. (I worked over 20 years in heavy industries and it almost is the default.)
Have a look at these two:
Why would the law mention this if it would be a non-existing situation (which is what you are saying)
(ARG art. 15 Pausen)
And here a clarification:
https://www.ch.ch/de/wie-lang-darf-i...-pause-machen/
And this is exactly why a lot of factory workers are not allowed to leave the working space during their lunchtime. Because the law allows the employer to put up such restriction, and because their lunchtime is to be considered labour time and thus should be paid but still counts towards the breaks.
EDIT: The page you gave as reference is nice, but it is a short sum-up of rulings for default situations and leaves out al the exceptions the law has made. Also it is a matter of common sense, the law will always balance between what is good for the employee, but also what is needed for the work space, a factory demands people close by to interfere immediately when something happens since you often can not just shut down a line (I've worked at factory's where starting up or shutting down was a five day process. Also often each has their own specialties and it would not be reasonable to have the employer hire several extra people for each team just so people can go to the supermarket during lunchtime. I do know that Switzerland has little heavy industries, but it does exist and thus the rulings are there. Also this can apply to stores, bars or actually any place where it might be needed to have the hands back on the work floor in very short time, but where it would be deemed unreasonable to hire more people to always have spare hands standing ready when one or more are having lunchtime.
A short example of the costs that might occur when this rule would not exist (I take an example from a Factory in the Netherlands) 7 Different teams at work at once and all on a 5-shift system, so a total of 35 teams. Each team on average 3 different specialists who's work can not just simply be overtaken because the rest of the team does not have his/her knowledge or because those who do cannot be expected to leave their own spot when needed. Also some interruptions demand immediate action of several different places on the line which would need the whole team to do this. Just to ensure people would be allowed to leave the premises this factory must hire 105 Extra people which would cost millions a year. That would be insanity, and luckily the law recognises such.