State Lunch and Break Law Requirements in South Dakota

South Dakota employers and employees alike may be wondering what the state law mandates for lunches and breaks. My research shows that, in fact, there are no state laws on the books in South Dakota governing this area.

While South Dakota law does not have any lunch and break provisions, residents of the state are covered by several interesting federal rules in this area. Did you know that Federal law does not mandate that employers give lunches or breaks to their employees? The federal laws do give instructions to employers as to whether or not breaks should be paid, if they chose to offer them.

Short breaks of 20 minutes or less should be counted as hours worked. Lunch breaks or other meal periods are usually 30 minutes or more, and do not need to be compensated as work time. For this to be the case, however, the worker must be completely relieved of his or her duties during the meal break. If the employee is still required to do any duties (even something that isn’t very time consuming), it can’t be considered a meal or lunch period and must be paid.

I’ve also learned that Federal law also contains regulations as to employee pay during times of waiting, sleeping and traveling. Employee pay during times of waiting can depend on the situation. If an employee is allowed to read a book or do something else of his or her desire while waiting for another task to be finished or while waiting at the workplace for his or her services to be called upon, it is typically considered work time. If, however, an employee is waiting to be called upon, but has great freedom to do what he or she wishes while on call (and has ample time to respond to the call), it is not generally considered paid work time.

The general guideline when it comes to travel time is this: time spent in the normal day’s commute to and from work is not considered paid working time. However, if an employee is traveling during work hours as a part of the job, it must be considered paid work time.

A final issue of interest to some employers and employees is sleeping time. An employee who is on duty less than 24 hours is considered to be “working” even if he or she is permitted to sleep during some of those hours when not busy. If an employee is required to be on duty for over 24 hours, a sleeping period of no more than eight hours may be subtracted from work hours. This can only be done if sleeping quarters are provided and at least five hours of uninterrupted sleep may be achieved by the employee.

A presentation of labor laws relating to lunches and breaks may be found on the South Dakota All in One Labor Law Poster. This poster also features information on all other state and federal labor law requirements.