© 2025 Seyfarth Shaw LLP Massachusetts Wage & Hour Peculiarities, 2025 ed. | 37 of action to bring a claim against an employer for a violation of that statute.224 However, when an employer does not properly compensate an employee for work performed during a missed meal break, the employee may take legal action for nonpayment of wages under the Wage Act.225 The following scenarios exemplify contrasting circumstances: Example 1: An employee is not provided a meal break, but the employer pays him or her for working through the break. Though the employee was fully compensated for the time, the employer has nonetheless violated the meal break statute and may face fines imposed by the Attorney General. In this circumstance, however, since the employee was paid for the missed break, the employee has no claim against the employer for nonpayment of wages. Example 2: An employee is not provided a meal break or does not take a complete meal break (i.e., goes back to work early), but the employer assumes the employee took the break and deducts thirty minutes from the employee’s time. Once again, the employer has violated the meal break statute and may face fines. In addition, since the employee was not compensated for the missed break, the employee may have a claim against the employer for nonpayment of wages and may bring suit under the Wage Act.226 The Office of the Attorney General has stated that an employee may agree to work or stay at the workplace during the meal break, but the employer must pay the employee for all hours worked.227 While the employee may demonstrate voluntary waiver by working through a meal break or by remaining on the premises at the request of the employer during the meal break, the employer is strongly encouraged to obtain a signed, written waiver before allowing an employee to work during a meal breaks. Questions have also arisen regarding whether employers may impose a mandatory thirty-minute meal break and deduct those thirty minutes from employees’ pay, whether or not the employees take the time off. By law, employees must be paid for all hours worked, or “working time.”228 While employers may enforce mandatory rules requiring that meal breaks be taken at a specific 224 M.G.L. ch. 149, §§ 2 & 100. See also Salvas, 452 Mass. at 373 (“[T]he Legislature’s express language providing for enforcement by the Attorney General . . . combined with its specific provision of a private right of action for certain other sections of G.L. c. 149, but not for § 100, weighs heavily against recognizing a private right of action under § 100.”); see also White v. C. Carney Recycling Solutions, LLC, 548 F. Supp. 3d 272, 274 (D. Mass. 2021) (recognizing that there is “no private right of action” under M.G.L. c. 149 § 100) (quoting Salvas). 225 In addition, as explained at the end of this section, the SJC has held that in some circumstances employees may pursue breach of contract claims for missed meal breaks. 226 M.G.L. ch. 149, § 150. 227 Meal Breaks, supra note 216. 228 See 454 C.M.R. § 27.02 (defining “working time”). This definition is similar to the federal definition of the “workweek,” which includes “‘all the time during which an employee is necessarily required to be on the employer’s premises, on duty or at a prescribed workplace.’” 29 C.F.R. § 785.7 (citing Anderson v. Mt. Clemens Pottery Co., 328 U.S. 680, 691, 66 S. Ct. 1187, 90 L.Ed. 1515 (1946) (abrogated by statute on other grounds)).
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