I`m in 3rd quarter in a factory that paints wind towers. We start from Sunday to Thursday evening from 10pm to 630pm. We were assigned to work 13 days at a time. And come early on day 14. So we haven`t had a full day off for 3 months. Is it illegal? The law stipulates that a day of rest must be added to the normal rest period allowed at the end of each working day. For example, an employer who let you work until noon one day and showed up at noon the next day was unable to recover that 24-hour rest day. www.illinois.gov/idol/Laws-Rules/FLS/Pages/ODRISA.aspx The new law changes the period during which employees must be given a day off. Currently, employers must grant insured employees (non-exempt workers, with the exception of certain employees in certain professions and sectors, as specified in the statutes) a day of rest during a calendar week from Sunday to Saturday. For example, employers could schedule insured employees for more than seven consecutive days, as long as it is not Sunday to Saturday without a single non-working day.

With the new changes, employers must provide insured employees with a 24-hour rest period for “each consecutive seven-day period.” Employers who wish to opt out of this change must obtain an exemption from the Illinois Department of Labor to allow employees to work more than six consecutive days. These waivers are limited to only eight (8) weeks per year without proof of “necessity”, and upon proof of “necessity”, an employer may extend the period by seven consecutive days beyond eight (8) weeks. In addition to requiring mealtimes, ODRISA currently requires, as the name of the law suggests, that employers provide employees with at least 24 consecutive hours of rest during “each calendar week,” in addition to the normal rest period allowed at the end of each workday. As a result, an employer could require employees to work up to 12 consecutive days while meeting the requirement that one day of rest occur in each calendar week. That will no longer be the case. Finally, the amendments require employers to publish a notice (provided by the Illinois DOL) summarizing ODRISA requirements and information on how to file a complaint with the Illinois Department of Labor. For employees who work remotely, notification can be via email or on a website. Employers who violate this notice provision may be subject to civil penalties not exceeding $250 payable to the Illinois DOL. Employers can get permission from the Ministry of Labour to have their employees work 7 days a week, but they can only do so for a maximum of 8 weeks a year. Full rules can be found here. The amendments replace the “calendar week” with “consecutive seven-day period”, requiring employers to grant consecutive days of rest less than 7 days apart, regardless of the calendar week(s) in which those days fall.

The amendments also provide that each “week” (presumably any consecutive 7-day period) during which an employee is not entitled to the required 24 hours of rest is a separate offence for the purposes of assessing civil penalties. Similarly, each day on which an employee does not receive the required meal times is a separate offence. As the name of the law suggests, there must be a full 24-hour rest day in a seven-day week. The term “week” refers to seven consecutive 24-hour days that begin at 12:01 a.m. on Sunday morning and end at midnight on the following Saturday evening. The day of rest should coincide with the traditional day of religious worship chosen by the employee. The law also requires a mandatory 20-minute unpaid meal break for every seven-and-a-half-hour shift that must be granted in the first five hours of work. If your employee is a hotel room attendant in Cook County, they will be entitled to a 30-minute lunch break for a seven-hour shift plus two 15-minute breaks. The law assumes that Sunday will be the only day of rest out of seven.

Employees who must work on Sundays must be informed in advance and know their day of rest during the week. The specific wording reads as follows: `Each employer shall place prominently on the premises a timetable containing the list of its employees who must or may work on Sundays and determining the day of rest for each of them`. First, the amendments revise the interval at which employees must be given a day off.