Mass-Peculiarities: An Employers Guide to Wage & Hour Law in the Bay State 2022 Edition

© 2022 Seyfarth Shaw LLP Massachusetts Wage & Hour Peculiarities, 2022 ed. | 11 If New Year’s Day, Independence Day, Veterans Day, or Christmas Day falls on a Sunday, then the holiday is observed on the following Monday, and the closure law applies on that day. 34 For retail employers, this means that the premium pay and voluntariness requirements also apply to that Monday. 35 Because the Sunday laws are still in effect as well, these requirements will therefore apply to two consecutive days if the employer chooses to operate both days. Manufacturing employers are subject to a unique statutory provision. If a factory or mill falls within one of the exemptions to the Blue Laws, it may operate on legal holidays. However, employees may not be required to work on legal holidays unless the work is “absolutely necessary and can lawfully be performed on Sunday . . . .” 36 To qualify as work that “can lawfully be performed on Sunday,” the work must “for technical reasons require continuous operation . . . .” 37 Given this restrictive standard, manufacturing employees generally cannot be required to work on holidays. Employees may, however, volunteer to work on legal holidays. In addition, manufacturing employers may apply for a one-day local police permit to operate on a holiday in circumstances where “serious production inconvenience [] will result if such work is not performed on such holiday.” 38 The following charts—one applicable to retail establishments and the other to non-retail establishments—summarize the complex network of laws governing legal holidays. 39 34 M.G.L. ch. 4, § 7. When Christmas falls on a Sunday, a permit from the DLS is not required in order for retail employers to operate on the followingMonday. M.G.L. ch. 136, § 15. 35 For Christmas, the premium pay and voluntariness requirement s will only apply to the Monday following the holiday, since retail stores may not open on Christmas Day if Christmas occurs on a Sunday. 36 M.G.L. ch. 149, § 45. 37 M.G.L. ch. 136, § 6(6). 38 M.G.L. ch. 136, § 15. In addit ion, permit s may be granted “ for the performance of work on [legal] holiday[s] by clerical and office personnel in offices which are corporate offices or branches of interstate manufacturing operat ions working in other states on such holiday or in offices connectedwith manufacturing plant s in the commonwealth” even if product ion work does not occur in the plant s on the holiday, “ if inconvenience will result if such work is not performed on such holiday.” Id. 39 M.G.L. ch. 136, §§ 13-16.