P.R. Laws tit. 29, § 283
Every employer shall affix in a conspicuous place in the establishment, shop, factory, plantation, office or place of work, as the case may be, a printed notice setting forth the number of working hours required daily from the employees for each day of the week, the time to begin and end work, and the time to begin and end the period for taking food within the regular working hours.
The periods assigned for taking meals which occur within or outside the regular work schedule of the employee may be of less than one hour. If a lesser period is fixed for the mutual convenience of the employee and his/her employer, or through the written stipulation of both, the aforesaid shall not be less than thirty (30) minutes, except for croupiers, nurses and security guards, in which case it may be of a minimum of twenty (20) minutes. In the case of those periods for taking meals which occur outside the regular work schedule of the employee when he/she does not work more than two (2) hours after the regular schedule, the aforesaid may be disregarded through a written agreement between the employee and the employer for their mutual benefit, and without the need for the intervention of the Secretary of Labor and Human Resources.
Within ten (10) days following the effectiveness of this act, the Secretary of Labor and Human Resources shall provide through regulations, everything that is pertinent to the compliance of what is provided in this section. Said initial regulations shall not be subject to the provisions of §§ 2101 et seq. of Title 3, but any amendment, renewal or adoption of new regulations shall comply with the provisions thereof.
Once the stipulations to those effects are approved by the Secretary of Labor and Human Resources, they shall be valid indefinitely and if the same work relationship continues, none of the parties may withdraw its consent to what was stipulated without the consent of the other, until one year after the stipulation’s effectiveness.
When the employees are unionized, the stipulation for reducing the period fixed for taking food may be effected through collective bargaining or written agreement between the union and the employer, there being no need, in such case, for the individual consent of the employees represented by the union, nor the approval of the Secretary of Labor and Human Resources, the reduction being in such cases effective for the duration of the agreement, or as provided in the collective bargaining agreement.
The period assigned for taking meals shall not commence before the conclusion of the third hour, nor after the sixth consecutive hour of work commences, so that at no time shall the employees be required to work more than five (5) consecutive hours without a break in their work schedule to take meals. Provided, That as an exception and pursuant to the regulations promulgated to such effects, the Secretary of Labor and Human Resources may authorize that the period for taking meals may be taken between the second and third consecutive hour of work.
Every employer who employs or permits an employee to work during the period fixed for taking food, shall be bound to pay for said period or fraction thereof at a wage rate equal to double the rate agreed upon for regular hours. In such cases where, pursuant to the provisions of this section, the period fixed for taking food is reduced to a period of less than one hour, the employer shall be bound to pay a wage rate equal to double the rate agreed upon for regular hours, only if he employs or permits an employee to work during such reduced period fixed taking food.
In commercial, industrial and agricultural establishments and those devoted to other profit or nonprofit businesses where persons are employed at alternate hours during all the days of the week, a special notice shall be affixed, stating the name of each one of the employees and the hours he works on each day of the week.
The hours fixed in the notice shall constitute prima facie evidence that such working hours in each establishment constitute the division of the working day.
It is the duty of every employer to request the printed forms for these notices from the Department of Labor and Human Resources which shall furnish them free of charge.
History —May 15, 1948, No. 379, p. 1254, § 14; June 27, 1961, No. 121, p. 261, § 1; June 22, 1962, No. 88, p. 232; July 23, 1974, No. 223, Part 2, p. 161, § 5; May 5, 1976, No. 27, p. 65, § 1; Aug. 17, 1990, No. 41, p. 168; renumbered as § 15 by § 5 and amended by § 4 on July 20, 1995, No. 83.