In George et al v. National Water Main Cleaning Company et al, the contractor hired “catch basin cleaning” employees to clean state and city sewers. The contractor then failed to pay those workers prevailing wages, and argued that prevailing wage laws were unconstitutional. But the Federal District Court saw through the charade, finding that that Section 27F of Massachusetts allows the Department of Labor to correctly classify workers and set prevailing wage rates, and that the Legislature’s decision to delegate that authority was perfectly fine.

If you are employed by a public works company and are concerned about your job classification or whether you are paid properly, please call us today.

The Massachusetts overtime statute, M.G.L. c. 151, § 1A, states that “no employer in the commonwealth shall employ any of his employees …for a work week longer than forty hours, unless such employee receives compensation for his employment in excess of forty hours at a rate not less than one and one half times the regular rate at which he is employed.” While the language of the statute seems clear enough, employers have argued that the “regular rate” need not be the prevailing rate, as long as employees are compensated at the prevailing rate for all hours worked.

Title 455 of the Code of Massachusetts Regulations, § 2.20(3), clearly provides that the overtime rate shall be “one and one half times an employee’s regular hourly rate, such regular hourly rate not to be less than the basic minimum wage.” The SJC has determined that “[t]he applicable minimum wage for public works projects is the prevailing wage.”

Accordingly all employees on public works projects must be paid at a rate of one and a half times the prevailing rate for all hours worked beyond 40 hours a week.

If you work on a public works project for a city or town in Massachusetts and your employer refuses to pay you the prevailing wage or overtime at one and a half times the prevailing wage, give us a call.