Massachusetts Employment Law Blog

A simple discretionary clause in a commission plan does not disqualify earned commissions from protection of the Wage Act. Prudential Insurance offered commissions to its sales employees under a commission plan. Prudential retained the discretion to interpret and administer the plan, and to deny earned commissions to those employees Prudential terminated for cause, including poor…

A Massachusetts man who was paid after being laid off, will receive even more money because his former employer failed to specify that the extra money was for unpaid vacation days. In Dixon v. City of Malden, Mr. Dixon was dismissed from his role as a director of a nursing home, and at the time…

Philip was the Keynote Speaker at the Human Capital Series run by the Small Business Association of New England. Philip gave a lecture on January 30, 2013 entitled “Mitigating Your Employment Risks.”

Many employers automatically deduct meal breaks from employee pay, but never actually give employees those breaks. In Massachusetts that is a crime, but while the employer might suffer criminally the question often comes up as to how much pay an employee should receive for that unpaid work time. As we’ve reported in a past blog…

Shortly after retail powerhouse Wal-Mart of Bentonville, Arkansas, filed a complaint with the National Labor Relations Board claiming Black Friday walkouts by Wal-Mart employees qualified as illegal picketing, the Organization United for Respect at Wal-Mart quickly filed its own complaint stating that the walkouts were legally protected. The NLRB has since issued a statement temporarily…

In an effort to deter massive employment abuse, and in a nod to those employers who refuse to take the low road but suffer serious economic disadvantages against competitors who cut corners, Governor Deval Patrick has signed into law new requirements for temporary staffing agencies. Now, in addition to other requirements, these employers may no…

Do you know who your employer is? Enterprise Holdings, Inc. was the parent company and sole stockholder of 38 corporate subsidiaries that operated many of their rental car agencies. Nickolas Hickton, an assistant manager of one of those agencies sued his subsidiary, as well as Enterprise Holdings, Inc., for overtime wages on behalf of himself…

In a ruling unusual for its legal support, the Supreme Court has ruled that Obamacare is constitutional. While it comes as little surprise that the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act of 2010 is constitutional, the reasoning is curious. The most controversial component of the Act was the individual mandate to purchase health insurance or…

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 Representatives have long argued that they are entitled to overtime, working long hours with little authority to do much other than recommend products, and the Department of Labor has supported that view in its written opinions. But the pharmaceutical industry has refused to comply, arguing that those representatives are subject to the outside salesman…