194 | Massachusetts Wage & Hour Peculiarities, 2025 ed. © 2025 Seyfarth Shaw LLP hour laws.1224 It also lists hotlines for wage and hour and fair labor complaints.1225 B. Posting Days of Rest and Sunday Work As discussed in Section VIII.B, with a few narrow exceptions, an employer must allow each of its employees to have at least twenty-four consecutive hours of rest per week.1226 If an employer operates its business on a Sunday, it must first post a list of employees who will work that day.1227 The list must specify which alternate day of rest those employees will receive, and it must be on display in a conspicuous location.1228 Employers may not require or allow employees to work on those designated days of rest.1229 C. Posting Work Hours for Minor Employees Employers of minors must post each minor’s weekly schedule in a conspicuous location within the minor’s work area.1230 The posted schedule must indicate the start and stop times for each day of work, the total hours worked per day, the precise times of meal breaks each day, and the total number of work hours for the week.1231 An employer may not change this schedule once the workweek has begun without the Attorney General’s written consent, and employers may not permit or require minors to work during their scheduled time off for that week.1232 1224 Office of Massachusetts Attorney General Compliance Poster, Massachusetts Wage & Hour Laws (June 2021), available in English, Spanish, Portuguese, Haitian Creole, Khmer, Vietnamese, and Chinese at https://www.mass.gov/doc/massachusettswage-hour-laws-poster/download (last visited Mar. 6, 2025). 1225 Id. The federal government also requires employers to post in a conspicuous location a notice of the FLSA’s wage and hour provisions. 29 C.F.R. § 516.4. This poster states the federal minimum wage (currently $7.25 per hour) and summarizes the federal laws concerning overtime pay, youth employment, tips, nursing mothers, and the enforcement of these laws. DOL WHD Compliance Poster, Employee Rights Under the Fair Labor Standards Act (April 2023), available at http://www.dol.gov/whd/regs/compliance/posters/minwagep.pdf (last visited Mar. 6, 2025). The poster prominently displays a toll free wage and hour complaint hotline, as well as the website address for the DOL’s Wage and Hour Enforcement Division. 1226 M.G.L. ch. 149, § 48. While the statute limits itself to manufacturing, mechanical, or mercantile employees, at least one court has construed it broadly to cover all jobs with the exceptions discussed below. See, e.g., Bujold, 2007 WL 4415635, at *13 (holding that the law “prohibit[s] everyone from being required to work seven days per week unless the statute expressly allowed a defined group of employees to be denied a weekly day of rest”). There are narrow exceptions to this rule, including establishments used for the manufacture or distribution of gas, electricity, milk, or water; hotels; the transportation of food; and the sale or delivery of food by or in establishments other than restaurants. M.G.L. ch. 149, § 49. See also M.G.L. ch. 149, § 50 (the following individuals are also not subject to Sunday work and rest day laws: janitors; employees whose duties include no work on Sunday other than setting sponges in bakeries; caring for live animals; caring for machinery; employees engaged in the preparation, printing, publication, sale, or delivery of newspapers; farm or personal service employees; and any employee called for service by an emergency; and pharmacists employed in drug stores). 1227 M.G.L. ch. 149, § 51 (this also includes employers affected by M.G.L. ch. 149, § 50, discussed in Section I.C). 1228 Id. 1229 Id. 1230 M.G.L. ch. 149, § 74. 1231 Id. 1232 Id.
RkJQdWJsaXNoZXIy OTkwMTQ4