Employers in California can’t keep their workers on call during short rest breaks and must give up any control over how they spend that time, the state Supreme Court said Thursday in a case that pitted labor activists against business groups.
The ruling came in a lawsuit by security guards for ABM Security Services Inc. The high court said the company’s policy of requiring guards to keep their radios and pagers on and respond to needs such as escorting a tenant to the parking lot during their rest periods violates state law.
Employers would have a “broad and intrusive degree of control” if they were allowed to keep employees on call during 10-minute rest breaks, Associate Justice Mariano-Florentino Cuellar said.
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