Legal Updates

An employee may be entitled to compensation if not afforded a chair during work time and break time

June 25, 2019
Print

A restaurant hostess was required to work long hours standing up without any possibility to sit, and the work area did not even have a chair on which she could sit during work time.
The Court accepted the claim in part and held that the employee s entitled to compensation. Even if most of the employee’s work is dynamic and requires movement, at least in part the employee should be allowed to do her job while sitting. Failure to place a chair in the work area constitutes a violation of the law that requires an employer to make available to its employees a chair and to not prevent them from sitting - unless the normal performance of the work does not enable sitting. However, because the employer enabled the employee to sit during break time, the compensation granted to her was be significantly reduced.