Help Wanted: Long workdays, forced lunches

They don't generally limit the number of hours that employees work except in a few industries like factories, retail establishments and some hotels. And even then the law just guarantees those workers a 24-hour rest period each week. But your husband wouldn't even qualify for that limited relief because laws requiring a day of rest don't generally cover managers, the state Labor Department said.

Though you said he was exempt from overtime, it's worth mentioning that managers qualify for overtime under New York State Labor laws if they make no more than $543.75 a week.

While labor laws might not offer him a respite from the long work days, changing his work habits might.

Here are some suggestions from Rita Maniscalco, a career, life and business coach in Huntington and a past president of the Long Island Coaching Alliance:

Those regulations require employers to give employees who work more than six hours a day at least a half-hour, uninterrupted meal break. And the state Labor Department insists that companies give employees the time. The regulations even specify when that break should take place. If you start work before 11 a.m. and your shift continues past 2 p.m., your meal period should fall between 11 a.m. and 2 p.m.

Employers can even make the meal break longer, as your hourlong lunch period shows, because the regulations say "at least" a half-hour long. And as you mentioned, the break is unpaid. But that assumes that you don't do any work during the break. And there's the rub. If you don't take a lunch break and end up doing some work during that time, you will cost your company more in wages or put it at risk for a meal violation.

About the only time your company could justify not giving you a meal break is if you were the only person on duty with no one to relieve you. Otherwise, you have to do lunch. It's the law.

For more on the state's day-of-rest regulations and for more on meal-break statutes, go to http://bit.ly/11CMa9u