Massachusetts Employment Law Blog

Many employers automatically deduct meal breaks from employee pay, but never actually give employees those breaks. In Massachusetts that is a crime, but while the employer might suffer criminally the question often comes up as to how much pay an employee should receive for that unpaid work time. As we’ve reported in a past blog…

Shortly after retail powerhouse Wal-Mart of Bentonville, Arkansas, filed a complaint with the National Labor Relations Board claiming Black Friday walkouts by Wal-Mart employees qualified as illegal picketing, the Organization United for Respect at Wal-Mart quickly filed its own complaint stating that the walkouts were legally protected. The NLRB has since issued a statement temporarily…

In an effort to deter massive employment abuse, and in a nod to those employers who refuse to take the low road but suffer serious economic disadvantages against competitors who cut corners, Governor Deval Patrick has signed into law new requirements for temporary staffing agencies. Now, in addition to other requirements, these employers may no…

Do you know who your employer is? Enterprise Holdings, Inc. was the parent company and sole stockholder of 38 corporate subsidiaries that operated many of their rental car agencies. Nickolas Hickton, an assistant manager of one of those agencies sued his subsidiary, as well as Enterprise Holdings, Inc., for overtime wages on behalf of himself…

In a ruling unusual for its legal support, the Supreme Court has ruled that Obamacare is constitutional. While it comes as little surprise that the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act of 2010 is constitutional, the reasoning is curious. The most controversial component of the Act was the individual mandate to purchase health insurance or…

The effort to require employers to demonstrate a justifiable business reason for paying women less than men and to prohibit employers from retaliating against women who reveal their wage information has failed to pass Congress. Many of our women clients earn less than men working in similar positions. While the Paycheck Fairness Act remains blocked…

Pharmaceutical Representatives have long argued that they are entitled to overtime, working long hours with little authority to do much other than recommend products, and the Department of Labor has supported that view in its written opinions. But the pharmaceutical industry has refused to comply, arguing that those representatives are subject to the outside salesman…

In a victory for health and safety, as well as employment, Massachusetts hospitals are now prohibited from requiring nurses to work mandatory overtime. Hospitals can no longer require nurses to work beyond their regularly scheduled shifts, except in cases of emergency. Nurses may still volunteer to work more hours, but those nurses who work the…

While some American employers and employees may complain about languages other than English being spoken in the workplace, mandatory English-only policies may not be legal. The law states that an employer must demonstrate a “business necessity” to put an English-only policy into action, but that necessity must be extremely serious or the business runs the…

Mario Batali is well known as a celebrity chef, educating many in the fine art of cooking. Now he can add to that resume an education in properly paying employees, as he has just settled a class action suit alleging that his restaurants illegally withheld tips from approximately 1,100 captains, servers, waiters, bussers, back waiters,…