The state of Massachusetts passed labor legislation to safeguard employees’ rights there. Employees in Massachusetts should carefully examine these statutes since they will outline their rights concerning employment and the workplace. The Massachusetts labor laws also specify workers’ steps to defend these rights.
Massachusetts has some complicated labor rules. Massachusetts’ current hourly minimum wage is $12.75.
According to the state’s labor rules, whenever an employee works more than 40 hours in a workweek, they must receive overtime pay equal to one and a half times their base wage. There are exceptions, but they are uncommon and dependent on the circumstances.
Blue Laws
The “Blue Laws” are laws that are in effect in Massachusetts. These regulations restrict an employer’s ability to have their staff work on Sundays and federally recognized holidays.
Companies may also be compelled to pay a rate equal to one and a half times the employee’s base salary in certain circumstances, particularly where employers are allowed to engage their employees on Sundays or holidays.
Breaks and Meals
All businesses are legally required by Massachusetts labor rules to never make their staff work more than six hours in a single day without giving them a half-hour break.
The break or meal period may not be compensated, particularly if workers are relieved of all obligations and permitted to leave the office at any time.
Though employees willingly forego their 30-minute breaks at the employers’ request, even if no work is completed, the employers are still required to pay the employees at the federal minimum wage level for the missed breaks. This could entail continuing to work during the employee’s break, staying on the property, or staying “on call.”
If a person works in the ironworks sector, their employer is not required to provide a 30-minute break.
This also applies to:
- Glassworks
- Letterpress businesses
- Print publishing
- Working with dye or bleach
- Paper mills
- Any more factories, such as workshops or machine shops
The Massachusetts Attorney General established these exclusions in response to the failures that might arise if employees left the workplace or worked over the usual limits specified by state law. These exemptions, which emphasize the ongoing nature of the numerous procedures and circumstances unique to those businesses, are acceptable as long as no employees are hurt.
Termination Pay
Massachusetts’s labor laws do not mandate that businesses give their workers any type of severance pay. Any employer who offers severance benefits is free to do so, and any such decision must be made per the terms of service outlined in the firm’s internal policies and employment contracts.
Untimely Wage Payments
It is acceptable for an employer to pay all of its employees on a semimonthly, monthly, or weekly basis in the state of Massachusetts. However, the employer does not always follow the law.
According to state legislation, employees must be paid hourly to get their weekly or biweekly paychecks.
The situation is different for salaried workers, who may be paid weekly, bimonthly, semimonthly, or monthly. However, employers are not permitted to pay their paid staff monthly unless the employee finds the monthly schedule more convenient.
After the end of a pay period for which any wages were earned while the employee worked five to six days in a given week, the employer is required to pay the employee within six business days. If workers complete all seven days of a particular workweek, their employer must pay them within a week. Employees who choose to work overtime or who are obliged to do so must be paid for it in the same pay period in which they were paid for their regular workday.
For any reason, overtime pay cannot be postponed; it cannot be paid in dividends each month or in the following cycle of payments.
Not Paying Wages After Termination
An employer must pay an employee all outstanding wages on the last day of employment, especially upon termination. The same holds true for fired employees. On the final day of employment, an employer must pay a terminated or laid-off employee all wages due.
If and when an employee leaves on their own volition, the company may defer paying that employee’s wages until the following regular payday, at which point the employee would receive money as usual.
Employees Incorrectly Classified as Exempt or Non-Exempt
Like the Fair Labor Standards Act, Massachusetts state law creates several types of workers excluded from regulations governing minimum wage and overtime.
For real executive, professional, and administrative roles, the state has adopted many of the same categories as the FLSA. Furthermore, Massachusetts has its own statutory employee dossier, which lists employees exempt from minimum wage and overtime pay regulations.
Most employees are legally considered eligible for overtime pay, despite the fact that many employers classify their workers as overtime exemptions.
Failure to Compensate Salaried Employees for Extra Time
Every hour an employee works in a given week above 40 hours and qualifies for overtime pay must be compensated at one and a half times their base pay rate.
Employers frequently break overtime laws without realizing it. Employers frequently mistakenly believe that overtime pay is included in employee salaries. The state holds a different view and does not legally permit businesses to add any supposed overtime pay to the base pay rate of any salaried employee.
An employee is not automatically ineligible for overtime pay just because they are paid on a salary basis.
The sort of job that a person performs for an employer determines their eligibility, as does a minimum threshold of $455 per week required by law to go to the employee.
Employee Misclassification
By misclassifying their employees, businesses frequently make a failed attempt to escape their obligations and requirements under the wage, labor, and overtime laws. Employers categorize their staff as independent contractors to avoid providing full employee benefits.
State legislation assumes that everyone who is not free from the employer’s control is an employee at the institution.
In addition, Massachusetts presumes that a person is an employee if they render any services to an employer that are “outside the ordinary course of the employer’s business” or if they “are customarily engaged in an independently established trade, occupation, profession, or business of the same nature as that involved in the service rendered.”
In determining whether a person may be properly classified as other than an employee under prong two, the Fair Labor Division of the Office of the Attorney General stated that they “will consider whether the service the individual is performing is necessary to the business of the employing unit or merely incidental.”
Making Wage Deductions Improperly
Employers frequently won’t think twice about withholding money from their employees’ paychecks for a variety of reasons. These include: losses or damage to company property that are assumed to have been sustained by an employee, cash that has been stolen, improperly borrowed from, or embezzled from the business, or any abuse of benefits like school tuition assistance, relocation assistance, or educational benefits that the employer provides.
Many of these deductions are illegitimate and prohibited.
The Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court made a point of addressing a common practice about whether or not employees may be required to cover the costs of damage to company vehicles through pay deductions or other forms of retaliation.
The state courts declared the policy unconstitutional and were not permitted to be deducted from an employee’s wages. The lack of employee appeal procedures, the fact that the employer made itself fully responsible for determining the extent of any damage, and the difficulty of establishing a “clear and established debt” under these circumstances led the courts to this conclusion.
Where Can I Find a Local Lawyer to Help Me?
Employment law violations are difficult to prove on your own. Contact a Massachusetts labor lawyer today if you are not getting the basic rights and protections offered by Massachusetts’ labor laws.
