My boss says I can take my 10-minute break but has to keep my phone on. Is that allowed?
No. A California rest period has to be free of duty and free of employer control, which means off-call as well as off-task. Being required to stay reachable and interrupt the break on demand defeats it, and your employer owes one hour of premium pay for that workday.
This was settled in a case about security guards who had to keep radios on during their breaks. The employer argued that merely being reachable is not working. The court held that a break under an obligation to respond is not a break.
The obligation itself is what matters, not whether anyone actually called. If you must monitor the device and drop the break when it rings, you were under control for those ten minutes.
Rest periods in California are paid and count as hours worked, which is why you do not clock out for them. That is also why nothing in most payroll records shows whether one really happened.
If this is the routine rather than a one-off on a short-staffed day, the premium applies to each day it happens.
Last reviewed 2026-08-09. Informational only — not legal advice. California rules change; confirm against the current source before acting.