162 | Massachusetts Wage & Hour Peculiarities, 2025 ed. © 2025 Seyfarth Shaw LLP The new notice requirements do not apply to two categories of employees: (1) “professional employees,” as defined in the federal Fair Labor Standards Act, 29 U.S.C. § 152;991 and (2) secretaries or administrative assistants with certain enumerated duties.992 2. Limitations on Fees Charged to Temporary Workers The law prohibits staffing agencies and work site employers from charging fees to temporary workers for the following:993 The cost of registering with the agency or for procuring employment Any goods or services unless there is a written contract that states in clear language that the contract is voluntary and provides that the employer will not profit from the fee Issuing a bank card, debit card, payroll card, voucher, draft, money order or similar form of payment or wages, or any drug screen that exceeds the actual cost per applicant/employee Any goods or services that would cause the applicant or employee to earn less than the minimum wage A criminal offender record information (CORI) request Transportation, unless the charge is no more than the actual cost of the transportation, does not exceed 3 percent of the employee’s total daily wages, does not reduce the employee’s daily wages to below the minimum wage, and is not for transportation that the employee was required to use by the staffing agency, work site employer, or person acting in either’s interest994 991 29 U.S.C. § 152 defines a “professional employee” as follows: “(a) any employee engaged in work (i) predominantly intellectual and varied in character as opposed to routine mental, manual, mechanical, or physical work; (ii) involving the consistent exercise of discretion and judgment in its performance; (iii) of such a character that the output produced or the result accomplished cannot be standardized in relation to a given period of time; [and] (iv) requiring knowledge of an advanced type in a field of science or learning customarily acquired by a prolonged course of specialized intellectual instruction and study in an institution of higher learning or a hospital, as distinguished from a general academic education or from an apprenticeship or from training in the performance of routine mental, manual or physical processes; or (b) any employee, who (i) has completed the courses of specialized intellectual instruction and study described in clause (iv) of [subsection (a)]; and (ii) is performing related work under the supervision of a professional person to qualify himself to become a professional employee as defined in [subsection (a)].” 992 A secretary or administrative assistant qualifies for this exception if his or her main or primary duties involve one or more of the following: drafting or revising correspondence; scheduling appointments; creating, organizing, and maintaining paper and electronic files; and providing information to callers or visitors. M.G.L. ch. 149, § 159C. 993 This section describes fees that staffing agencies cannot charge to temporary workers. The regulations provide detailed provisions on fees that employment agencies can charge to certain workers. 454 C.M.R. § 24.09. 994 M.G.L. ch. 149, § 159C. In Palacio v. Job Done, LLC, Civ. No. 1584cv00813BLS2, 2018 WL 3431698, *2 (Mass. Super. June 14, 2018), the court found that under the statute, “where workers are jointly employed by a staffing agency and a work site employer, because they simultaneously did work for and were subject to the direction and control of both, the two joint employers
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