At the SEC, Lunch Is Under Surveillance

Add the ability to eat quickly to the list of skills needed to work at the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. In a dispute that has sent pangs of resentment—and perhaps hunger—across the agency, the SEC’s employee union president is warning workers to keep lunch breaks to a half-hour or risk being disciplined as “absent without leave.”

“Despite the fact that most SEC employees are often told that they may take an hour for lunch, technically, we are only entitled to thirty minutes,” wrote Greg Gilman, an SEC lawyer who heads the agency’s union chapter, in an e-mail sent to colleagues on Oct. 24. “Do not fall into the trap of believing that because you are a ‘professional’ the rules do not apply to you.” In his message, Gilman cautioned employees to “be careful not to take a walk to get coffee, even with your supervisor,” because “a case may be built very easily based upon these types of behaviors.”