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

140 | Massachusetts Wage & Hour Peculiarities, 2022 ed. © 2022 Seyfarth Shaw LLP recalculate them whenever the general minimum wage increases. 812 It also summarizes the laws regarding overtime, youth employment, fringe benefits, and the petitioning process for contesting a special wage. 813 The DOL’s wage and hour complaint hotline prominently appears at the bottom of the poster. 814 X. WAGE ASSIGNMENTS Wage assignments are contracts that transfer an employee’s right to collect his or her future wages to a third party. 815 Typically, employees assign their wages in order to repay debts owed to banks, credit card companies, or other creditors. Massachusetts takes a paternalistic approach to wage assignments, carefully regulating them due to concerns that such assignments could result from improper coercion or could leave employees unable to support themselves and their families. 816 To be deemed valid in Massachusetts, all wage assignments must be in writing and they must substantially conform to a standard form provided in the statute. 817 The employer must accept the wage assignment in writing, and the employee’s spouse must give his or her written consent as well. 818 Employees may not assign their wages to their employer or to any third party if the intent is to relieve the employer of the obligation to pay wages. 819 The Commonwealth’s other requirements for valid wage assignments vary depending on whether the assignment is for more or less than $3,000. 820 For amounts under $3,000, a record of the wage assignment must be recorded by the clerk of the municipality where the employee resides if he or she is a Massachusetts resident, or where the employee is employed if he or she resides out- of-state. The assignment must state that wages of $10.00 per week are exempt. Wage assignments of less than $3,000 are only valid for one year. 821 812 Disabilities Poster , supra note 360. 813 Id . 814 Id . 815 M.G.L. ch. 154, § 1. Employees may assign wages earned through at -will employment , even though the employment is of unknown durat ion and the amount of future earnings is uncertain. See Citizens’ Loan Ass’n v. Boston & Maine R.R. , 196 Mass. 528, 530 (1907) (“ [T]he worker under cont ract for service, though indefinite as to t ime and compensat ion and terminable at will[,] has an actual and real interest in wages to be earned in the future by virtue of his cont ract .”). 816 See In re Nance , 556 F.2d 602, 610 (1st Cir. 1977) (holding that purpose of statute is to “protect a wage earner from assigning away in advance his ent ire means of support ing himself and his family”). 817 M.G.L. ch. 154, §§ 2-3, 5; In re Opinion of Justices , 267 Mass. 607, 609 (1929) (noting that wage assignment s must be memorialized in writ ing). 818 M.G.L. ch. 154, §§ 2-3. The statute by it s terms requires the writ ten consent of the employee’s wife , but it is likely that a court would update this language to require the consent of a spouse of either sex. See In Re Opinion of Justices , 267 Mass. at 609 (not ing that wage assignment s must have writ ten consent of employee’s wife). 819 M.G.L. ch. 149, § 150. 820 See M.G.L. ch. 154, §§ 2-4. 821 M.G.L. ch. 154, § 2.