© 2025 Seyfarth Shaw LLP Massachusetts Wage & Hour Peculiarities, 2025 ed. | 35 B. Compensable “Working Time” Both Massachusetts and federal law require that employees be paid for all “working time.”213 Working time encompasses not only those hours spent by employees actively engaged in work, but also the time during which employees are required to be on the employer’s premises or in the service of the employer off-premises.214 Certain Massachusetts laws require employers to provide employees with breaks from work activity and dictate how, and if, employees must be compensated for this time. In addition, Massachusetts and federal law address the compensability of other “working time,” such as travel, sleep, and on-call time. 1. Meal Breaks Massachusetts law mandates that all employees (including exempt employees) receive an unpaid, thirty-minute meal break after six hours of work.215 The meal break must be the employee’s free time, meaning the employee must be relieved of all duties and free to leave the workplace during that time.216 Employees must likewise be allowed to pray during meal breaks.217 An employer that fails to provide a meal break on time or that cuts an employee’s meal break short has violated the meal break statute.218 One Superior Court case reiterated that under Massachusetts law, an employee must be “relieved of all work-related duties” during a meal break; otherwise the time is compensable.219 The court 213 Massachusetts law does not define “work,” but does define “working time” as “all time during which an employee is required to be on the employer’s premises or to be on duty, or to be at the prescribed work site . . . .” 454 C.M.R. § 27.02. 214 29 C.F.R. § 785.7; 454 C.M.R. § 27.02. Under both Massachusetts and federal law, “whenever an employer imposes special requirements or conditions that an employee must meet before commencing or continuing productive work, the time spent in fulfilling such special conditions is regarded as indispensable to the performance of the principal activity the employee is hired to perform.” U.S. Department of Labor (DOL) Wage & Hour Opinion Letter FLSA1998 (Jan. 26, 1998). See also DLS Opinion Letter MW-2008-002 (Jan. 18, 2008) (adopting federal approach). For example, both the DOL and DLS have opined: Time spent undergoing a physical examination is time during which the employee’s freedom of movement is restricted for the purpose of serving the employer and time during which the employee is subject to the employer’s discretion and control. It is immaterial whether the time spent in undergoing the required physical examination is during the employee’s normal working hours or during nonworking hours. The physical examination is an essential requirement of the job and thus primarily for the benefit of the employer. DOL Wage & Hour Opinion Letter FLSA1997 (Oct. 7, 1997); DLS Opinion Letter MW-2008-002 (Jan. 18, 2008). If the physical examination is conducted prior to the establishment of an employment relationship, such time may not require compensation. DLS Opinion Letter MW-2008-002 (Jan. 18, 2008). 215 M.G.L. ch. 149, § 100. Federal law does not require employers to provide meal breaks to employees. 29 C.F.R. § 785.19. 216 Salvas v. Wal-Mart Stores, Inc., 452 Mass. 337, 373 (2008) (discussing trial court’s dismissal of claims concerning shortened unpaid meal breaks due to lack of private right of action without monetary harm); see also DLS Opinion Letter MW-2003-008 (Aug. 5, 2003) (employees must be paid for meal break time where required to remain on employer’s premises). See also Office of Massachusetts Attorney General, Meal Breaks, available at https://www.mass.gov/guides/breaks-and-time-off (hereinafter, “Meal Breaks”) (last visited Mar. 6, 2025). 217 Id. 218 An Advisory from The Attorney General’s Fair Labor and Business Practices Division on Meal Periods, Advisory 94/2, (Sept. 30, 1994), available at https://www.mass.gov/doc/advisory-942-an-advisory-from-the-attorney-generals-fair-labor-and-businesspractices-division-on-meal-periods/download (last visited Mar. 6, 2025). 219 DeVito v. Longwood Sec. Servs., Inc., SUCV201301724BLS1, 2016 WL 8200495 (Mass. Super. Dec. 23, 2016). The court rejected the federal standard, which requires compensation only if meal break time was spent “predominantly for the benefit of the
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