50 Litigating CA Wage & Hour Class and PAGA Actions (23rd Edition) Seyfarth Shaw LLP | www.seyfarth.com In 2006, in Bearden v. U.S. Borax, Inc.,257 the Court of Appeal held that Section 516 invalidated provisions of IWC Wage Order No. 16 on the ground that the Wage Order was inconsistent with specific meal period regulations within Labor Code section 512. By way of background, Section 512 specifies these regulations on meal periods: • An employer may not employ an employee for a work period of more than five hours per day without providing a meal period of not less than thirty minutes, except the meal period can be waived by mutual consent if the total work period is no more than six hours [§ 512(a)]. • The IWC is empowered to adopt a Wage Order permitting a meal period to commence after six hours of work [§ 512(b)]. • The general rule in Section 512(a) does not apply to certain employees in the wholesale baking industry [§ 512(c)]. • The general rule in Section 512(a) does not apply to certain employees in the broadcasting industry covered by a collective bargaining agreement. Effective January 1, 2001, the IWC adopted Wage Order 16-2001 covering employees in the construction, drilling, logging, and mining industries. Unlike other Wage Orders, Wage Order 16-2001 includes a collective bargaining exemption to the meal period requirements, which provides that meal period requirements do not apply to employees covered by a collective bargaining agreement that provides for wages, hours of work and working conditions, a regular pay rate at least 30 percent above minimum wage, and premium pay for all overtime hours worked. The defendants argued that this provision exempted them from the normal requirement to provide meal periods. Bearden held that this collective bargaining exemption from meal period requirements was invalid because it created a new exemption not recognized in Section 512.258 Bearden noted that Section 512 contains specific exemptions from the normal meal period requirement: when an employee working no more than six hours in a day waives the meal period and under other specified conditions for employees working in the wholesale baking and broadcasting industries.259 Bearden reasoned that where the Legislature has set forth specific exemptions in a statute, those exemptions are generally assumed to be exclusive. Proceeding on that premise, Bearden reasoned that Section 516 forbade the IWC from adopting exemptions beyond those set forth in Section 512.260 Despite the invalidity of the collective bargaining exemption, Bearden held that the employer could not be held liable for any penalties because Section 226.7 allows for such penalties only when the employer violates an IWC Wage Order, and U.S. Borax had complied with Wage Order 16-2001.261 257 Bearden v. U.S. Borax, Inc., 138 Cal. App. 4th 429, 432 (2006). 258 Id. at 486-88. 259 Id. at 487. 260 Id. at 487-88. 261 Id. at 493.
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