Legal Question in Employment Law in Ohio

Re: Can they make stay at work on my unpaid Lunch Break

I am aware of no state or federal law that prohibits employers from requiring employees to remain on the premises during lunch breaks, paid or unpaid. However, because your lunch breaks are unpaid, you must be completely free of all job-related responsibilities during this time and the employer cannot require you to be on-call during these unpaid lunch breaks.

Assuming you are not a minor or a party to a collective bargaining agreement that provides otherwise, neither Ohio nor federal law requires your employer to provide ANY breaks (it is a very common misconception that breaks are required). Therefore, your employer is free to dictate the length of breaks. However, short breaks (between 5 and 20 minutes in length), generally count as work time and thus, generally must be paid.