An unpaid walk of six to 14 minutes to a break area doesn’t necessarily create Fair Labor Standards Act violations, the U.S. Department of Labor said Tuesday.
The agency’s Wage and Hour Division weighed in on that question and two others — one on volunteer work and one on tip pooling — in a trio of recent opinion letters.
Meal periods
In the first, FLSA2026-11, DOL responded to an employee who asked whether an unpaid, 60-minute lunch break — during which they spent between six and 14 minutes walking to and from a designated break area — constituted a “bona fide” meal break in the eyes of the FLSA.
For a meal break to be unpaid, the law generally requires it be at least 30 minutes long and that employees be relieved of duty. Because the employee’s break time met both of those criteria, it was a bona fide meal period, DOL concluded.
The individual also suggested the walking time should be paid. WHD noted that some courts address this scenario differently, but said it is of the opinion that “[w]hen employees need just a few minutes of travel time to access a break room or other location where they can eat their meal, that time is generally not compensable.” Furthermore, the travel time was “comparatively brief” with respect to the full break time, and it did not prevent employees from receiving ample time to eat a regular meal and use the remainder of the break for personal purposes, WHD said.
The agency did not weigh in, however, on whether the meal period satisfied a collective bargaining agreement requiring a 60-minute meal period.
Volunteers
DOL in its second opinion letter, FLSA2026-12, answered a question from a nonprofit that breeds, raises and trains service dogs. Specifically, the employer asked whether it could allow employees to volunteer — alongside non-employee volunteers — to provide basic care for the dogs in their homes.
The agency said employees can be permitted to do so, as long as they’re volunteering without pressure from the employer and aren’t performing work similar to their job. “Put another way, a nonprofit employee cannot be both a paid employee and a non-paid volunteer while performing the same type of work for the same employer,” it said.
Tip pools
DOL’s final letter, FLSA2026-13, addressed whether a restaurant supervisor who also sometimes bartends can participate in a tip pool.
The agency answered with an emphatic “no” in this instance: The employee “is prohibited from receiving any portion of tips from other employees — even if he or she also works bartending shifts alongside other employees or assists other employees performing tipped work. This includes receiving other employees’ tips from a “tip out,” […] or from a tip pool to which the manager is otherwise required to contribute.”
DOL noted, however, that the employee could keep any tips received directly from customers. “If, however, the employee’s tips and other bartenders’ tips are consolidated and split among all bartenders working that shift, and therefore it is not possible to attribute the tip solely to the supervisor, the supervisor is not permitted to take any portion of those tips.”
