My lunch break is 1:30 till 2pm. and I end my shift at 2pm. Is it a Fed law that I must return to work before I leave at 2pm?

There is no law that requires it. There is also no law that prohibits the employer from requiring an employee to be there when their shift is over.

This is odd. Under California law, meal breaks are supposed to be in the middle of the work day, not at either end. The whole point of the break is to allow employees to refresh themselves at reasonable intervals. If you work more than five hours per day, you are entitled to a 30 minutes break in the middle of your shift. The difficulty is that if you complain, your employer might retaliate and find an excuse to fire you. There are remedies for this kind of retaliatory wrongful termination, but they only provide relief after the fact and cannot prevent the employer from being an abusive jerk. However if there are several employees in the same boat, you might consider filing simultaneous complaints with the Labor Commissioner to lessen the impact of any individual doing so. Division of Labor Standards Enforcement (DLSE), which is a sub-agency within the California Department of Industrial Relations. http://www.dir.ca.gov/dlse/. Some people refer to the DLSE as the Labor Commissioner. The DLSE enforces California's wage and hour laws, including those pertaining to overtime, rest and meal breaks, and more. The link for information on filing a wage claim is here: http://www.dir.ca.gov/dlse/howtofilewageclaim.htm.

I agree with Ms. Spencer's answer. Just to add one thing: California law requires that when an employee works for a work period of more than five hours, a meal period must be provided no later than the end of the employee’s fifth hour of work (in other words, no later than the start of the employee’s sixth hour of work). If your shift is a six hour shift or more, your employer violates the law by putting your meal period at the end of the shift. That said, Ms. Spencer raises a very good point. Sometimes it is better to know you are right but not make an issue of it. You need to decide how inconvenient this is for you and weigh that against your chances of getting other employment if the employer retaliates in a way that would be very difficult to prove. I wish you the best of luck. Pedersen Heck McQueen, APLC is an employee rights law firm assisting employees in all Southern California counties.