By Rachel Brahinsky

Like your lunch breaks at work? Soon, if Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's critics have it right, it could be much harder for you to take time out for lunch – and it will be even more difficult to sue employers if you're denied the respite.

The governor's staff and the business community contend that the proposal to change the state's meal-period regulations is simply an effort to bring clarity to a muddy area of the law. Labor groups counter that in the search for clarity, the governor is putting the squeeze on workers' rights.

It comes down to one of Schwarzenegger's pet peeves: lawyers and their tendency to, well, sue.

Tony Skogen sums up the concern in an article on the Littler Mendelson Web site, which advises business groups about changes in the law: "Employers in California have been drowning in the flood of wage and hour class actions filed for missed meal and rest periods."

We asked Skogen for some numbers to back up the claim, but he didn't have any. The state Labor and Workforce Development Agency, which is proposing the rule change, has tracked 180 meal-period violation lawsuits since Aug. 11 of last year. Is that a lot? It depends on who you ask.

Skogen and others charge that litigation-happy lawyers have been scouring the books for possible violations, taking advantage of the California law that allows employees to sue as far back as three years. The law allows ripped-off workers to collect extra penalties when businesses take a long time to pay up for missed breaks and to force employers to cover plaintiffs' attorneys' fees if they win.

They propose shifting more of the burden to take lunch breaks to the employee and shortening the statute of limitations under which workers can file claims to just one year. They also want to eliminate the extra penalties and (of course) cut out payments for the lawyers. Essentially the rule says that employers will have to inform the state's 17.7 million workers, in all lines of work, that they are owed a meal break within the first six hours on the job – but worker advocates fear it will be mainly up to the employee to make it happen.

Schwarzenegger couches the change in his typical libertarian rhetoric. As labor agency spokesperson Rick Rice put it, "What the change does is to allow an employee to eat when he's hungry, rather than when he or she is told to by the government."

Advocates for workers see it another way. "It may seem reasonable on its face," Nato Green, an organizer with San Francisco-based Young Workers United, told us. "But employers won't be saying, 'It is not our policy to give breaks' – they'll just make it impossible by doing things like short-staffing." (The YWU has been fighting Union Square's Cheesecake Factory restaurant to repay workers for missed break time [see "Unjust Desserts," 8/18/04].)

After all, the reason there are lots of lawsuits, critics say, is there are far too many violations of the existing lunch break laws. They charge that the governor's rule change will only make that worse – and it's part of his larger agenda to make it harder to challenge corporate scofflaws.

"They aren't saying that there aren't violations; they're saying it's too easy for workers to bring claims," Green said. "It's one of four or five different proposals that the governor has advanced that attempt to make it easier for employers to get around the rules." On top of that list is Proposition 63, the measure Schwarzenegger championed last fall that made it tougher for individuals to sue corporations.

The YWU is part of a local coalition of groups – including the San Francisco Labor Council, the California Labor Federation, the San Francisco Bike Messengers Association, the Day Labor Program, the Asian Law Caucus, and the Chinese Progressive Association – that is challenging the rule change. The coalition hopes to bring a show of force to the Feb. 8 labor agency hearing on the rule change scheduled for San Francisco. The event is one of only three such public hearings statewide and is the only one scheduled in the Bay Area.

At the hearing, coalition members are likely to cite studies that show that when workers miss breaks, there are more injuries – both for those on the job and for those they interact with. Picture sleepy bus drivers, worn-out roofers and tractor drivers, and exhausted and malnourished child care employees.

For Angie Wei of the California Labor Federation, it's not a pretty image. "There's a real public policy reason we have mandated breaks," she said. "This is a dead giveaway to big corporations that have cheated their workers. And the governor calls us 'special interests'?"

The local hearing on the rule change is scheduled for Tues/8, 9 a.m., Hiram Johnson State Building, Auditorium, 455 Golden Gate, S.F. (415) 703-5300. Other hearings are being held Fri/4 in Los Angeles and March 2 in Fresno. The public comment period ends March 2.

E-mail Rachel Brahinsky