James Watson has worked as a security guard throughout the East Bay since 1997. The 78-year-old East Oakland resident is currently stationed at the downtown Oakland headquarters of the East Bay Municipal Utility District, working from 7 a.m. to 3 p.m. on weekends and as a replacement on weekdays. But having signed an agreement with his security firm to be on duty at all times during his shifts, Watson must eat at his post. In a previous assignment, working at a wastewater facility in West Oakland, Watson kept a jar near his station so that he could urinate while on duty, rather than walk several blocks to the bathroom.

Watson said he initially refused to sign the agreement, and then was taken off the work schedule by his employer, Cypress Security, a San Francisco security services firm. Company officials told him he would work again only when a job became available in a multiguard location, he said. Eventually, Watson relented and signed the agreement, and was then assigned more work. "I felt this company was really out of line, taking advantage of employees any way they see fit," Watson said.

So today he is one of three plaintiffs in Kassem v. Cypress, a lawsuit against his employer. The suit, filed in San Francisco in October 2008, claims that Watson and others were forced, as a condition of their employment, to sign an "on-duty meal period agreement," which requires employees to stay on duty while eating lunch.

Under state law, employees working an eight-hour shift are guaranteed two fifteen-minute paid breaks and a thirty-minute unpaid lunch break. Since the employer's payroll system would probably deduct thirty minutes for lunch, if a worker skips lunch and keeps working, an employee is working without pay during that time.
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