Delaware Employment Law

The Fair Labor Standards Act defines the workweek as a fixed and recurring period of 168 hours comprised of seven consecutive 24-hour periods that do not need to coincide with the calendar week. It is adjustable only if the change is designed to be permanent. Each week is considered on its own for purposes of calculating overtime. The hours of two or more weeks may not be averaged.

Time spent traveling during normal work hours is considered compensable work time. Time spent in home-to-work travel by an employee in an employer-provided vehicle, or in activities performed by an employee that are incidental to the use of the vehicle for commuting, generally is not “hours worked” and, therefore, does not have to be paid.

Delaware has no general provision governing overtime pay, but most employees would be subject to the federal Fair Labor Standards Act, which requires that all nonexempt employees be paid at a rate of 1.5 times their regular rate of pay for all hours worked over 40 in a week.

Delaware state law does not have a generally applicable rest break law specified.

Employers must allow an unpaid meal break of at least 30 consecutive minutes if an employee works for 7.5 or more consecutive hours. The meal break must occur after the first two hours of work and before the last two hours.

The provision does not apply if a collective bargaining agreement provides differently. The Secretary of Labor may issue rules granting exemptions in cases where compliance would adversely affect public safety; when only one employee can perform the duties of a position; when the employer has fewer than five employees on a shift (in which case the exemption applies only to that shift); or when the continuous nature of the employer’s operations requires employees to respond to urgent or unusual conditions at all times and the employees are compensated for the meal breaks.

Breast Feeding Break

Employers are prohibited from discriminating against women on the basis of pregnancy-related conditions, including breastfeeding, and are required to make reasonable accommodations for employees who have pregnancy-related limitations. Such reasonable accommodations may include the provision of break time and appropriate facilities for expressing breast milk.