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

138 | Massachusetts Wage & Hour Peculiarities, 2022 ed. © 2022 Seyfarth Shaw LLP A. General Wage and Hour Notices Employers must display a poster setting out the Massachusetts wage and hour law requirements in a conspicuous location, and they must provide free copies of the poster to employees upon request. 795 Many employers maintain a bulletin board for posting notices to employees, often in a break area, in the lunch room, or in a location adjacent to the area where employees punch in and out. 796 The poster must state the Massachusetts minimum wage , 797 and must summarize the Commonwealth’s laws regarding the payment of wages, minimum wage, tips, paystub information, pay deductions, hours worked, meal breaks, earned sick time, non-discrimination and equal pay, domestic violence leave, child labor, overtime, retaliation, the SNLA, inspection of payroll records, rights of temporary, domestic, and public construction workers, and the employee’s right to sue for violations of the Massachusetts wage and hour laws. 798 It must also list several Fair Labor hotlines for wage and hour complaints. 799 B. Posting Days of Rest and Sunday Work With a few narrow exceptions, an employer must allow each of its employees to have at least twenty-four consecutive hours of rest per week. 800 If an employer operates its business on a for certain employees working on federal or federally assisted const ruct ion project s and federal government cont racts. See 41 U.S.C. § 351 et seq .; 29 C.F.R. § 5.5(a)(1); DOL WHD Compliance Posters, Employee Rights Under the Davis-Bacon Act for Laborers and Mechanics Employed on Federal or Federally Assisted Construction Projects (Oct . 2017) and Employee Rights on Government Contracts (Apr. 2009), available respect ively a t ht tp://www.dol.gov/whd/regs/compliance/posters/fedprojc.pdf a nd ht tps://www.dol.gov/sites/dolgov/files/WHD/legacy/files/govc.pdf ( last visited Aug. 4, 2021). 795 M.G.L. ch. 151, § 16; 454 C.M.R. § 27.07(1) (This rule does not apply to domest ic service employees who work in their employers’ homes, but employers of domest ic workers must give such workers a Not ice of Right s), available at ht tps://www.mass.gov/doc/not ice-of-right s-for-domest ic-workers/download. See M.G.L. ch. 149, § 190 (law relat ing to pay and other terms or condit ions of employment for domest ic workers). 796 For a complete list of all required post ings, se e ht tps://www.mass.gov/service-details/massachuset t s-workplace-poster- requirement s ( last visited Dec. 17, 2021). 797 M.G.L. ch. 151, § 1, as amended by St . 2018, ch. 121. The Massachuset t s minimum wage is scheduled to increase on the first of each calendar year unt il 2023 when it reaches $15.00 per hour. The current minimum wage rate is $14.25 per hour, and that rate will increase to $15 per hour in 2023. The “service rate” for t ipped employees will also increase on the first of each calendar year unt il 2023 when it reaches $6.75 per hour. For 2021, the service rate is $6.15 per hour. 798 Office of Massachuset t s At torney General Compliance Poster, Massachusetts Wage & Hour Laws (June 2021), available in English, Spanish, Portuguese, Hait ian Creole, Khmer, Vietnamese, and Chinese at ht tps://www.mass.gov/doc/massachuset t s- wage-hour-laws-poster/download (last visited Aug. 4, 2021). 799 Id . The federal government also requires employers to post in a conspicuous locat ion a not ice of the FLSA’s wage and hour provisions. 29 C.F.R. § 516.4. This poster states the federal minimum wage (current ly $7.25 per hour) and summarizes the federal laws concerning overt ime pay, youth employment , t ips, nursingmothers, and the enforcement of these laws. DOL WHD Compliance Poster, Employee Rights Under the Fair Labor Standards Act (July 2016), available at ht tp://www.dol.gov/whd/regs/compliance/posters/minwagep.pdf ( last visited Aug. 3, 2021). The poster prominently displays a toll free wage and hour complaint hot line, as well as the website address for the DOL’sWage and Hour Enforcement Division. 800 M.G.L. ch. 149, § 48. While the statute limit s it self to manufacturing, mechanical, or mercant ile employees, at least one court has const rued it broadly to cover all jobs with the except ions discussed below. See, e.g., Bujold , 2007 WL 4415635, at *13 (holding that the law“prohibit [s] everyone frombeing required to work seven days per week unless the statute expressly allowed a defined group of employees to be denied a weekly day of rest”). There are narrowexcept ions to this rule, including establishment s used for the manufacture or dist ribut ion of gas, elect ricity, milk, or water; hotels; the t ransportation of food; and the sale or delivery of food by or in establishment s other than restaurants. M.G.L. ch. 149, § 49. See also M.G.L. ch. 149, § 50 (the following individuals are also not subject to Sunday work and rest day laws: janitors; employees whose dut ies include no work on