employment canada british-columbia
Must an employer provide a break room/lunch room to its employees?
<p>I started working in a retail store. It has no lunch room, break room, or a place where employees can sit comfortably to relax. In practice there's a storage area where people use bins to eat their meal off of, but its intended use is not for this.</p>
<p>Is there a law regarding this? What legal actions are possible?</p>

<p><strong>Is there a law regarding this?</strong></p>
<p>The relevant law is the <a href="https://www2.gov.bc.ca/gov/content/employment-business/employment-standards-advice/employment-standards/forms-resources/igm/esa-part-4-section-32#policy" rel="nofollow noreferrer">Employment Standards Act of British Columbia</a> which only requires an employer to provide meal breaks for employees but not somewhere for them to eat their meal.</p>
<blockquote>
<ol start="32">
<li>(1) An employer must ensure</li>
</ol>
<p>(a) that no employee works more than 5 consecutive hours without a meal break, and</p>
<p>(b) that each meal break lasts at least 1/2 hour.</p>
</blockquote>
<p><strong>What legal actions are possible?</strong></p>
<p>None - unless there's a breach of, say, health and safety legislation by allowing meals to be eaten in a refuse area, but that's off-topic.</p>
