Governor Jerry Brown signed into law Senate Bill 327 to clarify that healthcare employees may waive one of their two meal periods on shifts that exceed twelve hours.

California Labor Code section 512 generally requires employers to provide two unpaid meal periods to employees who work more than ten hours per workday. However, employees are not permitted to waive the second meal period if the shift exceeds twelve hours.

Healthcare employers have long enjoyed a special rule permitting a second meal waiver if the shift was 12 hours. However, a recent  court ruling called Gerard v. Orange Coast Memorial Medical Center (2015) created confusion by ruling that healthcare employees could not waive the second meal period if the shift lasted even a few minutes longer than 12 hours.

The new law explicitly permits the waiver of one of the two state mandated meal periods when the shift are longer than twelve hours. As urgency legislation, it goes into effect immediately.

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