34 | Massachusetts Wage & Hour Peculiarities, 2025 ed. © 2025 Seyfarth Shaw LLP municipalities.204 Neither statutory provision includes a certified payroll requirement.205 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.206 4. Davis-Bacon and Related Acts The federal prevailing wage rate for construction is governed by the Davis-Bacon and Related Acts (DBRA).207 The DBRA 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.208 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.209 Employers subject to the DBRA must post the scale of wages in a prominent and easily accessible place at the work site.210 III. HOURS OF WORK & COMPENSABLE TIME A. The Workweek Both Massachusetts and federal wage and hour law use the “workweek” as a basic unit of measurement. The workweek consists of seven consecutive twenty-four hour periods and can begin on any day of the week and at any hour of the day.211 Once an employee’s workweek is established it remains fixed regardless of the schedule worked by the employee. Any change to the workweek is permitted only when the change is meant to be permanent and is not undertaken to evade overtime payments.212 204 M.G.L. ch. 149, § 27H; DLS, Topical Outline of Massachusetts Prevailing Wage Law, at 57 (July 2018). 205 M.G.L. ch. 149, § 27H; M.G.L. ch. 149, § 27G. 206 M.G.L. ch. 149, § 27H; M.G.L. ch. 149, § 27G. 207 40 U.S.C. § 3142. 208 Id. 209 Id. Under the DBRA, fringe benefits include life insurance, health insurance, pension payments, vacation, holidays, sick leave, and other “bona fide” fringe benefits. 29 C.F.R. § 5.23. 210 40 U.S.C. § 3142. 211 See DLS Opinion Letter MW-2008-005 (July 21, 2008) (looking to FLSA definition of “workweek”)). Note that employees working for the same employer, even with the same or similar job titles, may have different workweeks. Thus, formally establishing each employee’s workweek is most important since this determines (1) whether each employee has been compensated at no less than minimum wage; and (2) when the employer owes individual employees overtime. These two issues are addressed in Sections II and IV. 212 29 C.F.R. § 778.105.
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