- Casual
- Weekly
- Factory
- Touring
- Other
Rest Breaks
Rest Breaks are short, paid, periods during a work shift that allow employees to rest. These are sometimes colloquially referred to as “Smoko” or “Tea Breaks”. Rest Breaks are not a requirement of the LPA, but MPH offers them as an extra.
Rest Breaks are 10 mins in duration, are paid and employees do not need to clock-in or out for the break period.
While strongly discouraged by the company, for smokers or vapers, Rest Breaks are the times permitted to pause work and attend to the habit (outside of Meal Breaks).
For others, Rest Breaks may be used as each employee chooses.
The company sets the time of day a Rest Break can be taken and those times vary based on where an employee is working.
In the Warehouse
When working in the MPH Warehouse or Offices, all employees are assigned the following Rest Breaks:
- 10 mins (paid) from 10:30 – 10:40
- 10 mins (paid) from 15:00 – 15:10
At a Job Site
When working at a Job Site, all employees are assigned the following Rest Breaks:
- 10 mins (paid) every 5-hours worked
Meal Breaks
A Meal Break is an unpaid period of uninterrupted rest that is intended for employees to eat a meal, mentally disengage from work, and relax. Meal Breaks are a requirement under the LPA and contribute toward effective fatigue management.
👍🏽 Sasha is on a Meal Break. 15 minutes in, Sasha’s manager asks Sasha to return to work early to do an urgent task. Sasha says, “No thank you, but maybe after I finish lunch?”. Sasha’s manager apologises and leaves Sasha in peace 😴.
Sasha could choose to accept the manager’s urgent request, and if so, Sasha’s can take the missed portion of the Meal Break later in the day.
❌ Elena doesn’t want an unpaid break to be deducted from her day (and anyway, she’s not so hungry today) so she works through and leaves a note in the time tracking software “No break taken”.
Meal Breaks are a requirement and are a valuable tool in managing fatigue which directly relates to the safety of employees.
It is the employee’s choice if they eat on their Meal Break and employees may instead:
- Smoke a cigarette or vape
- Attend to personal matters (phone calls etc)
- Socialise
The company strongly recommends Meals Breaks are used as intended; to eat, rest and refuel.
To allow employees to enjoy their full meal break, MPH encourages employees to take advantage of on-site catering on Job Sites, to use meal delivery services or to bring their own lunch and use the Warehouse kitchens to prepare food when working at the warehouse.
Meal Break length
Meal Breaks are due based on how many hours have been worked. The Award sets out different break intervals and lengths for Casual and Weekly employees, MPH uses the Casual Meal Break allowances for all employees to standardise breaks and work across departments.
For all employees the Meal Break allowance is a 30-mins for each 4h worked.
While the Award prescribes the Meal Break interval and length, the time of day a Meal Break occurs may be varied by mutual agreement between the employee and their manager where specific work requirements necessitate it i.e. a 30m Meal Break may not actually be taken every 4h exactly.
A Meal Break cannot be scheduled for the end of the shift so must occur in the middle of the shift.
The below table outlines the required Meal Breaks based on example shift lengths (total hours at work).
| Total hours at work | Required Meal Breaks | Outcome | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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| 0 – 4h | 0 (no break) | No Meal Break Required as shift ends after 4h. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| 4 – 5h | 0 (no break) | If a shift is scheduled to be up to 5h in length (but never more) employees may work up to 5 continuous hours without a Meal Break.
However, a 30m Meal Break should be scheduled on these shifts if the Schedule can accommodate the break. For example, there is no deadline for crew to deliver their work by a certain time. For any shift more than 5h in length, the break allowances in this table always apply. |
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| 5 – 8.49h | 0.5h (30m) | Employees scheduled for a 5 – 8.49h shift require a 30m Meal Break.
A Meal Break cannot be scheduled for the end of a shift so must occur in the middle of a shift. Example 1;
Example 2;
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| 8.5 – 12.49h | 1h (60m) | Employees scheduled for a 8.5h – 12.49h shift are entitled to 2x 30m Meal Breaks.
Example 3;
Example 4;
Example 5;
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| 12.5 – 16.49h | 1.5h | Employees scheduled for a 12.5h – 16.49h shift are entitled to 3x 30min Meal Breaks.
Example 6;
Example 7;
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| 16.5 – 17h+ | 2h | Employees scheduled for a 16.5 – 17h+ shift are entitled to 4x 30 min Meal Break.
Shifts of this length only occur in extreme circumstances and managers and supervisors apply the Fatigue Management policy to consider employee wellbeing and safety. Example 8;
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QB Workforce automatically inserts Meal Breaks based on shift length. These are reviewed during payroll and adjusted appropriately if a missed Meal Break is reported.
See the Reporting a missed Meal Break section of this policy.
Taking Meal Breaks
Managers or Technical Supervisors coordinate suitable Meal Break times with employees where necessary, but it is equally the employee’s responsibility to understand Meal Break requirements and to take Meal Breaks.
Taking Meal Breaks when working on Job Sites will be fluid due to the nature of the work employees undertake and while a request for a Meal Break will never be denied, the time a break is taken, and the length of the break may be varied where specific work requirements necessitate it. This may mean taking a break earlier or later than anticipated.
The Extenuating Circumstances section of this policy applies.
Employees should speak to their supervisor immediately if they need a break, who will work to facilitate the request.
Providing notice
Employees are required to notify their manager or supervisor before they take a Meal Break and when they return from the break. This ensures managers and supervisors are aware of an employee’s whereabouts during the workday in case of emergencies.
Notice may be provided in person or by instant message.
Leaving the work location
Employees are permitted to leave their work location for a Meal Break but the Providing notice of intent to take a Meal Break section of this policy applies.
Meal Breaks start from the time an employee stops working. This means, if an employee chooses to leave site for a meal, the time it takes to travel to and from the restaurant (or chosen location) form part of the break. For example:
✅ Jack visits the chicken shop for lunch. It takes 5 minutes to drive there, 10 minutes to get the food, and 5 minutes to drive back to work. Jack has 10 minutes to eat his lunch, for a total of 30-minute lunch break
Drinking alcohol during a Meal Break
Employees cannot be under the influence of alcohol in the workplace due to the high-risk nature of the work they perform. Employees have an obligation to not put themselves or their colleagues at risk in the workplace.
See the MPH Drug and Alcohol policy for more details.
Missed, delayed or called off a current Meal Break
It’s never acceptable for employees to choose to skip, delay or come off a Meal Break on their own prerogative; the company is obligated to allocate Meal Breaks and employees are obligated to take them.
Meal Breaks are only missed or delayed or an employee called off a current Meal Break when Extenuating Circumstances arise.
Extenuating circumstances
The company acknowledges that sometimes, a Meal Break is delayed or missed due to extenuating circumstances outside the company or employee’s control.
The company always makes a best effort to avoid these circumstances by planning in advance and they should be the exception, not the rule.
Extenuating circumstances usually have these traits:
Exceptional: Exceptionally different to what we normally deal with
Unforeseen: No one could have expected or reasonably planned for this
Outside of our control: Nothing could be done to stop it happening
An MPH Manager or Supervisor makes the decision when a situation is an extenuating circumstance, and if a Meal Break is required to be missed, delayed or cut short (not all extenuating circumstances will result in a missed or delayed Meal Break).
Some examples of when a Meal Break could be missed, delayed or cut short include:
- The venue has a strict deadline as to when MPH staff must leave the venue, and the Job is running late due to a broken forklift – and the backup is out for repairs! Employees must skip their break to leave the venue by the deadline.
- Crew on a Job are heading off for their Meal Break after a changeover, but the Kinesys automation system just stopped working and it’s needed for this act! The crew perform a system reset and everything comes back online. Crew delayed their break by 15m but now take a 30-min Meal Break.
- It is an urgent requirement that a late-arriving truck leave the MPH Warehouse at a certain time to reach a destination in time. Everyone at the warehouse misses their break to get the necessary equipment in the truck so it can leave and get to the Job on time.
- Crew on a Job are in catering on their Meal Break and the touring Lighting Designer calls over comms to let the Tech Supervisor know that the downstage truss has a data glitch and some fixtures aren’t working. The show starts in a few hours so this needs to be fixed urgently!! The Tech Supervisor decides they are the best person to attend to the issue and takes a senior tech with them in case the truss needs to be lowered, requiring both crew to cut their break short. The rest of the crew remain on their break. The issue is rectified and the crew who attended to the issue take the missed portion of their break during the support act.
Examples of situations that are not considered extenuating circumstances, or reasons for not taking a Meal Break per the entitlements defined above:
❌ A staff member wants to go home earlier, instead of taking a break and extending their time at the work site.
❌ I really want to get this (non-urgent) thing done today!
❌ We’re within 1 hour of finishing the shift
❌ A staff member says they’re “not that hungry”, and will take a break later
❌ Staff members as a group agree to delay or skip a Meal Break
If the situation is not an extenuating circumstance (as decided by the Manager or Supervisor), the Meal Break must be taken per the entitlements defined in the Meal Break length section of this policy.
Reporting a missed Meal Break
If a Meal Break is missed employees follow the Reporting a missed Meal Break section of the Using QB Workforce guide.
Payment for a missed Meal Break
If a Meal Break was missed (not delayed) no break is deducted from the relevant work shift and the period that would have been a Meal Break, is paid.
Once the missed break is verified by an employee’s manager to have been due to Extenuating Circumstances, the statutory Meal Break is removed from the relevant shift and the time that would otherwise have been allocated as the break is paid per the employee’s classification under the Award.
This never occurs without express, documented approval by the relevant department manager.
An approval note will be left in the timesheet.
Breaks between shifts
A break between shifts is the time between when one shift ends on one day and the next shift starts the following day.
The Award provides for a 10h break between shifts and if not provided, overtime rates apply to the hours worked after a 10h break was missed. How overtime is paid, varies by employment classification.
Employees most likely to be impacted by less than 10h breaks between shifts are Touring employees, due to the nature of Production Schedules created by our clients. Typically, Production Schedules with a Load-in > Show > Load-out (eg. finish time 01:00) on the same day, going into travel to the next city the next morning (eg. at 06:00) are when the break between shifts will be less than 10h
The Award acknowledges this can occur and pays Touring employees a special overtime and penalty provision on all hours to financially compensate them for the flexibility.
The company applies the Fatigue Management policy when considering breaks between shifts.