Law change may signal the end of smoko breaks - Video

God another right National is trying to take away from me.

I am an office worker on a computer all day for approx 8-12 hrs a day.
OSH came to our office several years ago, and informed my employer that all computer operators need a 10min micro-pause break every hour. This is to get us away from our computers, allow blood circulation, and allow our eyes to refocus at a different distance.
Now National are telling us, to drop OSH's set requirements, and stop the food breaks that help our brains and body keep functioning at its maximum.
I know that I don't work at my peak in the afternoon if I have not had anything to eat.
We are humans not machines National. Stop trying to fit us all into a square box, when we are all different shapes.

mite have to move to China to get more rights as a worker. thanks National bet you get your breaks

Nice one - back to the good old days of the early 90s where the employer held all the power & could fire you at a drop of a hat, heading that way again. Why is it (I have children also) that they say children need a break all the time (12wks a year) but us as workers are fine with our 3-4wks & now dictated too about our smoko breaks....Man i should stop working beginning to be not worth it.

Despite the current regulations, some employers (like mine) dont provide any breaks now, so why the change?

@matt I 100% agree with you - it's a great time for employers to treat us like shyte!

So now our bosses can hire and fire us within 3 months with no reason or excuse, stop us having breaks,pay school leavers the same minimum wage that an unskilled person who has been in the workforce for many years and is desperate for work! Our government increases our ACC levies while our bosses freeze our pay because of our 'recession' and we wonder why our crime rate is gettin worse.! All take and no give!!!!

i lost one of my jobs and in the final meeting the boss told me it was a health and safty issue that i missed a break and left early

Not a bad idea, the way peoples lifestyles are these days, the normal 9-5 doesnt work for them, and then there is is the people who have kids and miss out on there stuff,
I have the sort of job where regular breaks dont always work out so i prefer to work thru lunch and knock off early and beat the traffic or take the extra hours worked, but the boss still cries about having to take lunch because thats the law,But he doesnt say anything when i am working through my breaks
It could be good for some but as usuall you will get the bosses who are Bas###ds and swindle there staff.So the grey fringes will have to be sorted.
so yeah if it can be sorted properly it might work

SICK SOCIETY--- Workers are being ripped to bits and attacked constantly these days.Wait till there is a serious injury accident and the employee has not had his recuperative break [OSH}.I remember in about 1970 at hamilton boys high school ; a scruffy barefoot,greasy long haired mess called James Baxter being allowed to read some poems at morning assembly and even then his poem was about a worker not being allowed "to have time for a 5 minute sh**" and wondering what he was about.Now here it is James.Perhaps you could write a code or card swipe in to the dunny with a onesy or twosy allowance!

I dont think this will change things much as smoko breaks were bought in because employers found that workers were more efficiant with regular short breaks than working continuously. It wasnt bought in to be kind to employees or because of worker rights as some will have you believe. Well thats what we were taught in school back in the 70s. In this liberal enviroment we live in these days the story has probably changed.