A company allowed its employees to take a halfhour lunch break. However, the break was uncompensated, and the employees were not permitted to leave the employer’s premises during the break. Nevertheless, these employees did leave their positions on the production line and eat in an employee lunchroom. They also went outdoors at their discretion.

Should the employer be required under the FLSA to compensate these hourly production workers for their thirty-minute lunch breaks? What about maintenance workers who might be recalled early from their lunch breaks if an equipment breakdown required it? See Brown v. Howard Industries, Inc.

[116 F.Supp.2d [PN764 (S.D. Miss. 2000)].