FRANKFORT — A Kentucky lawmaker is walking back a proposal to eliminate workers’ rights to lunch and rest breaks after an outcry from labor groups and others.

Rep. Phillip Pratt, R-Georgetown, filed a floor amendment Monday to his House Bill 500, which as originally written would have repealed Kentucky laws requiring that workers get meal and rest breaks. 

“I guess I was surprised by the outcry because actually my attempt was to simplify Kentucky labor law to make it so small businesses could keep from getting themselves in trouble,” Pratt told The Courier Journal.

Pratt said the original intent of the bill had been to “simplify the whole daggone system of Kentucky wage-and-hour law and federal wage-and-hour law.” He was concerned that small business owners face confusion over the differences between state and federal laws.

Federal law does not require employers to offer lunch or rest breaks, but Kentucky law requires rest breaks of 10 minutes for every four hours worked and a meal break of a “reasonable period” in the middle of a shift. 

Pratt said that the new version of the bill actually strengthens workers’ rights because it requires employers to relieve workers from any work duties while taking a meal break and to pay workers if they end up having to eat while working. 

“The floor amendment relieves all the anxiety over the removal of lunch breaks and the rest breaks. …That was not our intent,” Pratt said.

He said he’d received emails and phone calls from “concerned citizens.”

Pratt said he is not certain when the bill could come up for a floor vote.

‘We do recognize some positive movement’

Critics of the prior version of Pratt’s bill welcomed the proposed changes but said they still have some concerns.

“I’m glad that the break language has been removed, but this bill still harms workers,” said Michelle Henry, an employment law attorney at Craig Henry PLC.  

The bill would still eliminate overtime pay for work on a seventh day in a row, said Jason Bailey, executive director of the Kentucky Center for Economic Policy.

Pratt said Kentucky is currently one of only two states that require overtime pay for the seventh day of work, so he sees no problem with repealing that part of Kentucky law. 

Democratic lawmakers and labor groups also criticized Pratt’s original bill because it opened the door for employers not to pay workers for travel time between worksites. 

The new version addresses some of those concerns, but still leaves the door open for employees not to be paid for that time.

“Although there is new language about compensation for traveling between locations during the workday, the bill states that the employer ‘may’ not ‘shall’ be liable for wages during that period, which suggests that there are times when the employee will not get paid for that travel time,” Henry said.

Asked about that criticism, Pratt said his bill would simply codify a recent Kentucky Supreme Court ruling on this issue. 

“At this time, with the current amendment, we do recognize some positive movement from Rep. Pratt,” said Dustin Reinstedler, president of the Kentucky State AFL-CIO. 

However, Reinstedler is still concerned the bill would eliminate pay for workers while they are engaged in activities required for their jobs before and after they start working, such as putting on or taking off protective equipment. 

Pratt said if his bill passes, it would use the same language for pay for such preliminary and “postliminary” activities as the main federal labor law, the Fair Labor Standards Act. 

Reducing back pay and increasing lawsuits?

Henry, the Louisville employment law attorney, said the bill, if passed, would negatively impact people who have been underpaid, as well as the legal system as a whole. 

The bill would change the statute of limitations for bringing employment lawsuits from five to three years. That means employers who underpay their employees would have to pay back lost wages for only three years instead of five, Henry said. 

“It rewards employers who are able to hide their illegal pay practices for a few years by eliminating their liability for back pay and liquidated damages,” Henry said.

That could drive up the number of lawsuits filed by employees who may have been underpaid, Henry said.

Attorneys will file lawsuits more quickly instead of first trying to negotiate a resolution with the employer, she predicted.

Reach Rebecca Grapevine at rgrapevine@courier-journal.com or follow her on X, formerly known as Twitter, at @RebGrapevine.