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. | 51 with other personal garments, the employer need not reimburse employees for uniform maintenance costs. 282 c. Other Statutorily Permissible Deductions Both Massachusetts and federal law allow other deductions, such as union dues, purchase of stock pursuant to an employee stock purchase plan, and an employee’s portion of health care premiums, if authorized by the employee. 283 Recently, the Code of Massachusetts Regulations was amended to address “indirect deductions,” stating that “[a]n employer may not separately charge or bill an employee for fees or amounts not allowed as deductions.” 284 To date, neither the courts nor the DLS has provided any guidance on this new regulation. In addition, while an employer need not pay employees for time not worked due to tardiness, deductions may not be made from the wages of a non-exempt employee beyond the proportionate wage that would have been earned during the time lost. 285 3. Deductions Not Specifically Listed Above Beyond mandatory or specifically authorized deductions, employers are limited in the deductions they can make from employee paychecks, but due to the ambiguous wording in the statute, the parameters regarding which deductions are allowable are not clear. Thus, this is currently a heavily litigated area of law, and a few recent court decisions have provided additional guidance regarding the limitations on deductions. The most significant recent case, decided by the SJC, arose from an employee’s claim that a company was deducting from its drivers’ wages the costs of damage to company trucks in accordance with company policy. 286 Under that policy, a worker found to be at fault in an accident with a company truck could either accept disciplinary action or agree to set off damages against his wages. 287 The Court determined that Massachusetts law prohibits wage deductions associated with an employer’s unilateral determination of an employee’s fault and damages— even if the employee has authorized the deductions . 288 The Court further explained that lawful set-offs are limited “to circumstances where there exists a clear and established debt owed to the employer by the employee,” and held that an employer 282 Id. 283 See M.G.L. ch. 154, § 8; M.G.L. ch. 180, § 17A; 29 C.F.R. § 778.304(a)(3). 284 See 454 C.M.R. § 27.05(5). 285 M.G.L. ch. 149, § 152. 286 Camara v. Attorney Gen. , 458 Mass. 756, 757-58 (2011). 287 Id. 288 Id . at 763-64; see also DaSilva v. Border Transfer of Mass., Inc. , 296 F. Supp. 3d 389, 396 (D. Mass. 2017) (“The Massachuset t s Supreme Judicial Court has interpreted the statute as banning improper wage deduct ions, even where the employee has given his or her assent .”).