waive California meal period

Question

I was confused by my employer saying that I cannot waive my first meal break unless I work less than 6 hours.

512.   (a) An employer shall not employ an employee for a work period of more than five hours per day without providing the employee with a meal period of not less than 30 minutes, except that if the total work period per day of the employee is no more than six hours, the meal period may be waived by mutual consent of both the employer and employee. An employer shall not employ an employee for a work period of more than 10 hours per day without providing the employee with a second meal period of not less than 30 minutes, except that if the total hours worked is no more than 12 hours, the second meal period may be waived by mutual consent of the employer and the employee only if the first meal period was not waived.

I’m not a lawyer but how come this section mentions that you may only wave the 10 hour meal period if the first one was not waived unless you are able to waive the first meal break? It seems like a pointless statement and waste of breath if it is already clear that you cannot waive your meal break if you work over 6 hours?

Answer 1

You need to read the two sentences separately - they don’t depend on each other

1. If you work less then 5 hours you get no meal break. If you work 5 to less than 6 you get a meal break that can be waived by mutual agreement. If you work 6 or more you get one that cannot be waived. Stop! We’re done talking about that meal break.
2. If you work more than 10 hours but less than 12 you get a second meal break that can be waived. If you work 12 or more that second meal break can’t be waived.

What’s confusing in the second one is it talks about waiving the second only if you didn’t waive the first but to get the second you are already in a situation where you can’t waive the first. Why does it say that? Sometimes legislation is just poorly drafted. Perhaps the scope for waiving the first was wider and amendments were made and nobody noticed the redundancy they introduced. Or, perhaps it’s just a cock up.