© 2025 Seyfarth Shaw LLP Massachusetts Wage & Hour Peculiarities, 2025 ed. | 119 abide by the voluntariness requirements.696 Similarly, retail employers may only operate after 12 p.m. on Columbus Day and after 1 p.m. on Veterans Day, unless statewide approval has been granted by the Massachusetts Department of Labor Standards (DLS)697 and the retailer has obtained a local police permit.698 Retailers may, however, open after 12 p.m. on Columbus Day and after 1 p.m. on Veterans Day without DLS approval or a permit. Retail employers must follow the voluntariness requirements for all work performed on those days, regardless of the time the work is performed.699 Retail businesses may not open at all on Thanksgiving Day or Christmas Day without a permit from the DLS, which will only issue such permits on a statewide basis for all retailers.700 Historically, the agency has not authorized the issuance of such permits and has taken the position that retailers may not open for business on those days. If New Year’s Day, Independence Day, Veterans Day, or Christmas Day falls on a Sunday, then the holiday is observed on the following Monday, and the closure law applies on that day.701 For retail employers, this means that the voluntariness requirement also applies to that Monday.702 Because the Sunday laws are still in effect as well, these requirements will therefore apply to two consecutive days if the employer chooses to operate both days. Manufacturing employers are subject to a unique statutory provision. If a factory or mill falls within one of the exemptions to the Blue Laws, it may operate on legal holidays. However, employees may not be required to work on legal holidays unless the work is “absolutely necessary and can lawfully be performed on Sunday . . . .” 703 To qualify as work that “can lawfully be performed on Sunday,” the work must “for technical reasons require continuous operation . . . .”704 Given this restrictive standard, manufacturing employees generally cannot be required to work on holidays. Employees may, however, volunteer to work on legal holidays. In addition, manufacturing employers may apply for a one-day local police permit to operate on a holiday in circumstances where “serious production inconvenience [] will result if such work is not 696 M.G.L. ch. 136, § 13. 697 M.G.L. ch. 136, Section 7 gives the DLS the authority to grant police department officials or city selectmen the power to issue permits allowing Sunday work. 698 M.G.L. ch. 136, § 15. See also DLS, Statewide Approval for Early Openings on Columbus & Veterans Day 2020 (Aug. 17, 2020), available at https://www.mass.gov/doc/statewide-approval-for-early-openings-on-columbus-veterans-day-2020/download (last visited Mar. 5, 2025); Office of Massachusetts Attorney General, Massachusetts Blue Laws: Overview, available at https://www.mass.gov/guides/working-on-sundays-and-holidays-blue-laws (hereinafter, “A.G. Blue Laws Overview”) (last visited Mar. 5, 2025). 699 M.G.L. ch. 136, § 13. See also A.G. Blue Laws Overview, supra note 698. 700 M.G.L. ch. 136, § 15. 701 M.G.L. ch. 4, § 7. When Christmas falls on a Sunday, a permit from the DLS is not required in order for retail employers to operate on the following Monday. M.G.L. ch. 136, § 15. 702 For Christmas, the voluntariness requirement will only apply to the Monday following the holiday, since retail stores may not open on Christmas Day if Christmas occurs on a Sunday. 703 M.G.L. ch. 149, § 45. 704 M.G.L. ch. 136, § 6(6).
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