Massachusetts Employment Law Blog

The effort to require employers to demonstrate a justifiable business reason for paying women less than men and to prohibit employers from retaliating against women who reveal their wage information has failed to pass Congress. Many of our women clients earn less than men working in similar positions. While the Paycheck Fairness Act remains blocked…

Pharmaceutical reps campaign for overtime pay because companies assign long hours and strict targets. These workers rarely close sales. Most firms only let them promote and recommend products. The Department of Labor backed overtime rights in written opinions. Yet, the industry resisted and used the outside sales exemption as a shield. Even so, the Supreme…

Massachusetts hospitals cannot force nurse overtime now. The law protects worker health. It also protects patient safety. ƈenterprise parent? not needed. The main rule applies unless an emergency happens. Nurses can still accept extra hours. But they must choose it freely. Core Rules for Shifts and Rest A nurse can work up to 16 hours…

While some American employers and employees may complain about languages other than English being spoken in the workplace, mandatory English-only policies may not be legal. The law states that an employer must demonstrate a “business necessity” to put an English-only policy into action, but that necessity must be extremely serious or the business runs the…

Mario Batali is well known as a celebrity chef, educating many in the fine art of cooking. Now he can add to that resume an education in properly paying employees, as he has just settled a class action suit alleging that his restaurants illegally withheld tips from approximately 1,100 captains, servers, waiters, bussers, back waiters,…

An unusual correction just took place in Atlanta. Last year, the US Court of Appeals for the 11th Circuit in Atlanta found that conversational uses of the term “boy” with black men, which were “nonracial in context” could not support a claim of discrimination. The court’s decision overturned a $1.4 million jury award to former…

Big companies often avoid class action liability by forcing arbitration and blocking grouped claims. Recently, the US Supreme Court limited class action relief in job and consumer cases. Many workers lost access to fair recovery because companies spread harm in small, low-value claims. So, firms avoided payouts for widespread issues. Massachusetts Sets a Strong Limit…

All hours worked are important hours, and no employer shall fail to pay employees the minimum wage. But, what happens when an employer decides not to pay employees for certain working hours? Some courts have found that so long as an employee received at least the minimum wage, averaged out over all hours worked in…

Employers and their powerful lobbyists sought limits on how often employee can access their own employment files, and they got what they asked for – with a bit of good news for employees, too. A new law says that employees may no longer request access to their personnel records more than two times per calendar…

Seeking to put an end to the landmark discrimination verdict, Novartis and the plaintiffs representing the 5,600 women who worked there from 2002 until 2007 agreed to settle the case for $152 million, with an additional promise to spend $22.5 million over three years to improve its policies. The fairness hearing is set for November…