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. | 117 involved with unloading and transferring freight, so long as they are primarily responsible for safely loading trucks. 652 “Mechanics” are defined as those employees who keep vehicles in safe working condition. 653 Employees who fall within one of the four categories set forth above may be completely exempt from the FLSA’s overtime requirements during any workweek in which they perform duties that directly affect the safe operation of commercial vehicles, even if those duties are not their primary function. If the employee is available to be called upon to perform such duties, the exemption may apply regardless of the proportion of time spent performing safety-affecting work in any particular workweek. 654 The federal MCA exemption also requires that goods be moved in interstate commerce. 655 Work involves the transport of goods in interstate commerce when it is directly linked to the movement of such goods across state lines or national borders. 656 However, a driver need not actually cross into another state to be exempt if his or her employer can show that the work was part of a continuity of movement from the origin of the shipment to its destination in another state or country. 657 Even where goods are shipped from their origin to an in-state storage facility, with no fixed and persisting destination at the time of shipment, their transport may still qualify as interstate commerce if, among other things, “(1) the shipper, although it did not have to have lined up its ultimate customers when the product arrived, based its determination of the total volume to be shipped on projections of customer demand that have some factual basis; (2) no processing or substantial product modification of substance occur[red] at the warehouse; (3) while in the warehouse, the merchandise [wa]s subject to the shipper’s control and direction as to the subsequent transportation; and (4) the shipper or consignee [was responsible for] the ultimate payment for transportation charges even if the warehouse or distribution center directly pays the transportation charges to the carrier.” 658 Finally, the federal exemption requires that each vehicle that an employee works with have a gross vehicle weight rating of 10,001 pounds or more in order for that employee to be exempt 652 Id. 653 29 C.F.R. § 782.6. 654 29 C.F.R. § 782.2(b)(3). 655 The Massachuset t s motor carrier exempt ion is also limited to employees moving goods in interstate commerce. M.G.L. ch. 151, § 1A(8). 656 29 C.F.R. § 782.7(a). 657 29 C.F.R. § 782.7(b)(1); see Bilyou v. Dutchess Beer Distribs., Inc. , 300 F.3d 217, 223 (2dCir. 2002) (“Even if a carrier's t ransportation does not cross state lines, the interstate commerce requirement is sat isfied if the goods being t ransportedwithin the borders of one State are involved in a ‘pract ical cont inuity of movement ’ in the flowof interstate commerce.”) (quot ing Walling v. Jacksonville Paper Co. , 317 U.S. 564, 568 (1943)). 658 Collins v. Heritage Wine Cellars, Ltd. , 589 F.3d 895, 899-900 (7thCir. 2009); see also DOL Wage & Hour Opinion Let ter FLSA2005-10 (Jan. 11, 2005) (findingmotor carrier exempt ion applicable under revised DOT Guidelines for jurisdict ion under the Motor Carrier Act , 57 Fed. Reg. 19812, May 8, 1992, which include the four Collins factors).