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. | 69 municipalities. 393 Neither statutory provision includes a certified payroll requirement. 394 Employers of employees who move office furniture pursuant to a contract with the Commonwealth or a municipality cannot take credit for pension benefits paid on behalf of those employees, while employers of employees who clean public buildings can take credit for such benefits. 395 4. Davis-Bacon and Related Acts The federal prevailing wage rate for construction is governed by the Davis-Bacon and Related Acts (DBRA). 396 The Davis-Bacon Act requires that all contractors and subcontractors that perform work on federal contracts worth over $2,000 for the construction, alteration, or repair of public buildings or public works must pay their laborers and mechanics not less than the prevailing wage rates and fringe benefits for corresponding classes of laborers and mechanics employed on similar projects in the same geographic area. 397 Dozens of “Related Acts” extend the Davis-Bacon Act’s prevailing wage rates to laborers and mechanics working on certain federally-assisted (e.g., grants, loans, loan guarantees) construction. The prevailing wage rates and fringe benefit rates for these projects are determined by the Wage and Hour Division of the DOL. 398 Employers subject to the DBRA must post the scale of wages in a prominent and easily accessible place at the work site. 399 V. OVERTIME Under both Massachusetts and federal law, employers must pay certain employees at a rate of one and one-half times their “regular rate of pay” for all hours worked in excess of forty hours per workweek. 400 Federal overtime requirements are contained in the FLSA. 401 While similar in many respects to the FLSA overtime provisions, Massachusetts has adopted its own overtime requirements as part of the Massachusetts Minimum Fair Wage Law. 402 Massachusetts employers must apply whichever law provides the greatest protection for their employees. 403 393 M.G.L. ch. 149, § 27H; DLS, Topical Outline of Massachusetts Prevailing Wage Law , at 57 (July 2018). 394 M.G.L. ch. 149, § 27H; M.G.L. ch. 149, § 27G. 395 M.G.L. ch. 149, § 27H; M.G.L. ch. 149, § 27G. 396 40 U.S.C. § 3142. 397 Id. 398 Id. Under the DBRA, fringe benefit s include life insurance, health insurance, pension payment s, vacat ion, holidays, sick leave, and other “bona fide” fringe benefit s. 29 C.F.R. § 5.23. 399 40 U.S.C. § 3142. 400 29 U.S.C. § 207(a)(1); M.G.L. ch. 151, § 1A. Unlike some jurisdict ions, neither Massachuset t s nor federal law requires daily overt ime pay when an employee works more than eight hours in one day . Employers are only obligated to pay overt ime when a covered employee works more than forty hours in a given workweek regardless of how many hours were worked on any part icular day. 401 29 U.S.C. § 207. 402 M.G.L. ch. 151. 403 This may apply to the damages provisions as well as the substant ive requirement s of the laws. A U.S. dist rict court recent ly concluded that a plaint iff ent it led to overtime pursuant to the FLSA but not Massachuset t s law was ent it led to t reble damages and