They snuck it in with the increased min wage bill.

Yes, but why?

Because it saves companies money in the long term.

Was there a problem before with companies not being able to save enough?

That would be double dipping.

No.

Just like how you can now buy alcohol on Sundays, the state is trying to roll back their Blue Laws

Fucking hilarious.

No, companies were plenty rich before. They just wanted to be richer.

Fuck you, Baker.

That’s what I’m trying to understand. Clearly the extra pay was and is good for workers. So, if companies aren’t losing out because of it, why take it away?

That’s fine and dandy. The difference to me is that this particular “blue law” benefits thousands if not millions of hardworking people. Why take that away?

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But they are losing out, any loss of profit to them is a problem

We really do have to fight to get his back.

The business lobby won. We can still fight back. It does not have to be gone forever.

It was part of the "grand bargain" to increase minimum wage a few years ago. I think that was also when paid family and medical leave was passed. It's not directly connected but was all included in the same bill to get enough legislators to vote for it.

It was a compromise to increase the minimum wage to $15 per hour

We could just stop working on Sundays.

They didn’t sneak it in, it was a deal. The minimum wage was 8.10 an hour, with time and a half at 12.15 on Sundays and holidays. The deal was that minimum wage would be raised to $15 over the course of 4 years and the time and a half for Sundays would go away. You might argue they should have done both, which fine I don’t disagree.

But if a compromise was needed, this was a pretty good one. I remember having to fight over Sunday shifts for that extra cash. Now you just earn more than you ever did back then on any day of the week.

This is literally the answer. And it’s clearly better to have $15 every day than to have $12.15 once a week.

Enough so-called "small business owners" (but, really all businesses) complained about it to Baker, and the legislature.

The "compromise" was to raise the minimum wage, and eliminate time and-a-half on Sundays.

At the time, the argument here on reddit, was, "Why should you get paid 1.5x on Sundays just because its Sunday?"

And the answer is that Sunday was historically recognized as a 'Day of Rest', because it was church day--a day to pray, be with family, read the bible, and in the before times, laborers worked six days a week, went to church on Sunday, and then sometimes worked the latter part of Sunday after church was over, too.

As the economy transitioned from agrarian to manufacturing, and the labor movement pushed for eight-hour work days, weekends, and other labor rights, enough politicians felt that if someone till had to work on Sunday, that was time away from their family, and they should be justly compensated for it.

As church attendance waned, corporate propaganda increased, and local communities atrophied, Sunday became less and less a sacred day / automatic day off, and eventually the time came when corporations felt they were able to make the move to strike time and-a-half from workers' rights.

The End.

Because they want more money, even if it screws over employees.

This would be better if inflation didn't exceed the raises

We could have had both.

Well yeah but that’s a separate issue.

I’d rather them increase the minimum wage every day by an amount that makes it equal than to increase it by a lot on Sundays. If it’s ever a question of going back to time and a half on Sundays, why wouldn’t we just spread that increase out among the rest of the week so that everyone gets it.

Here’s the page from Mass.gov with more info

Also can contact your legislator and talk to them about it. Never hurts to voice your concerns to your elected officials

Because it violates the first amendment's freedom of and from religion. If the state requires you to pay more for one religion's holy day and not any others', it is violating the separation of church and state. Removing this and increasing min wage across the board is ultimately the right thing to do.

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This is what gets me. It was an outdated blue law which was meant to encourage people to go to church. What's more, it had such an uneven application that retailers were the vast majority of businesses who actually had to pay it. It was a shit law.

If people want premium pay on the weekends, then they should push for a law that makes sense in modern standards, is clear about what it's for, and doesn't have a million loopholes so that it doesn't disproportionately impact one job sector.

Yea why was Sunday special? Historically because we cared about the Christian day or rest but not the Jewish one. That’s kinda fucked in a “progressive” state that pretends to have a separation of church and state.

How so?

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Is it though?

cause Politian's suck! As part of the deal to raise min wage .They agreed to get rid of the Sunday OT...

MA has a long history of laws and regulations based in Christianity. What you and I interpret today as "progressive" wasn't always the case. Once upon a time, time and a half on Sundays was progressive.

I mean, yes? I’d be totally down to peg the minimum wage to inflation. But adding time and a half on Sundays is def not the way to deal with it.

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Mhmmm so guess I’m not missing the point, you just like being argumentative. Got it.

Time and a half was always a bad policy. This isn’t 1890, we don’t go to church on Sundays anymore. Minimum wage increase are good and I’m in support of them, just not on one random day of the week.

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I think it's a fine compromise. In the end, your probably making more money.

Instant vs delayed gratification is really the only really reason I could see people arguing this. People would rather get 1.5x or whatever on a Sunday then see the same increase in their paychecks over a two week period without having to work that Sunday, and to be fair overtime paychecks are fun to get and fun to work sometimes, but I’d still literally rather have the same money for less hours without the ability to overclock on a Sunday.

Fuck, then you could even work that Sunday and still make more than you were before WITH OT.

It is not like it was a long time ago. Time and a half was an incentive to have people work. It was just as the law of being allowed to open on Sunday was changing. Now it is uncommon to hear of a place being closes in Sunday.

I don’t see how any day of the week should be different for pay these days with the exception being Holidays. I don’t think they can force you to work Sundays either So if you don’t want to work Sundays because you don’t feel it’s worth it then you don’t have to.

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Idk about you but I’d much rather work on Sunday than on Saturday.

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Exactly right; and the minimum wage increase makes it easier to not be stuck working a Sunday for financial reasons.

Ok hear me out. What if, instead of doing a weird time and a half thing on Sundays they simply raised the minimum wage on every day of the week to a level well above what time and a half was. Oh wait, that’s literally exactly what they did.

God, these people have the logical faculties of republicans. Arguing with them is like arguing with a particularly silly brick wall.

These people are completely deluded beating themselves and others into the ground in the name of toxic individualism and bootstrap brainwash. Lol at fighting against more worker rights, how dumb and captive can you be. Incredible and they call themselves progressive

Here’s your pennies increase lil slave! Be grateful! 🥴

Meanwhile the wealth hoarding and disparity is at all time highs and basic data backs that up

But no, we still have to live with these dumb assholes holding everyone back because they were taught that you’re supposed to suffer like a bitch for the big man because “maybe I’ll be him one day!!!!1”

Absolute fuckin idiots lol

Then they turn around and wonder why they can’t buy a house etc. newsflash, the wealthy rape you and holding down min wage pay like a stupid fuck contributes to that even if you make more than that

Right? Haha!!

Let’s literally get down to brass tax here folks…yours is the true answer.

But the minimum wage increase is not enough to compensate for what people were making on Sundays. Especially when you factor in inflation.

I think this is it. People won’t admit that they honestly just don’t care about workers.

How is that a separate issue? No one is any better off at 15 than they were at 8 many years ago. Inflation has been crazy.

But we all know that minimum wage is going to be stuck at 15 for years.

it’s been getting phased out as minimum wage went up

So minimum wage was $8.10 an hour. Time and a half on Sundays was $12.15 an hour. The minimum wage is now $15. That was the bargain — it goes up for everyone, by a lot (almost 100%!), and in exchange we don’t do time and a half. Like I said elsewhere, it totally makes sense to peg the minimum wage increase to inflation like they do in Washington state.

*should

Well okay first of all that statement is just false. The minimum wage went up in like 2014 or so. Inflation this year has been pretty bad at around 8% but inflation from 2014 has NOT been 80%. $15 now is just factually more than $8 in 2014 when you adjust for inflation. You can look at the CPI statistics to clearly see this.

But it’s a separate issue because the issue of “what should the minimum wage be” is separate from “should you get paid more on Sundays just because it’s Sunday.” It makes perfect sense to me to say that the minimum wage should be higher in order to account for inflation. It makes NO sense to me to say that minimum wage should be higher on Sundays and not other days in order to account for inflation. My point here is that Sundays are not special, and the inflation rate does not make Sundays any more or less special. It is simply a separate issue.

The other point here is what was possible at the time. You have to remember that while we are a pretty progressive state overall we still elected Charlie Baker twice and would have done so again had he run. There is a level of “too progressive” at which point the average MA voter does get annoyed. The bargain that was struck was what could pass, and all in all it was a good bargain and one of the highest minimum wage increases in the country.

At the end of the day the politicians have to account for the will of the voters, and in MA we have a pretty good progressive base. But there are limits. This was a good deal, I’ll take the W.

M.I.T recently did a study that showed the basic living wage is higher in MA than $15. It is $17.22 in Hampden County and then just moves higher as you go towards Boston.

We need to get serious about addressing it. Time to tie it to inflation like CT did.

If only there was working class solidarity

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In reality, where retail is these days, it would just mean higher prices. It is easy to put this in a us vs. them rant, but it is really us vs. us.

I am all for getting rid of any state laws based on religious based control.

…most of them didn’t have time and a half pay on Sundays to begin with. That’s a pretty MA specific thing.

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So? The point is we should have had both

With what money??? You started this life in debt... and you want more???? Lol

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Always compromise for capitalism but not for the worker. Politicians cave again.

How many states have time and a half on Sunday, and what is the min wage there?

Yes all 8 republicans in the MA legislature did this.

But isn't that <in my scariest, deepest voice> COMMUNISM?

/s

I have no idea, and I can't find any info after a quick google search. If someone knows otherwise, please correct me.

Regardless, why did MA residents have to give up time and a half, just to get what other states got? What did other states' residents give up (hint: we all already know the answer to this question)?

I'm all for beating on Republicans any chance there is, christ knows they deserve it. But in this case, don't drink the kool-aid too much, Democrats in this state will fuck you just as hard if there is a dollar/vote behind it. And that's exactly what happened, and sycophants are more than happen to come out of the woodwork and place the blame squarely on Republicans, which just isn't true.

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No, it's socialism, which is arguably worse because it's the same thing as communism, but Nazis were socialist.

Or something.

/s, just in case.

Politics. Give and take, sometimes it works, and I think this was a fair compromise. This is an example of politics taking into account both sides, which is a good thing.

I feel like getting 1.5 on Sundays is so antiquated and too closely related to religion. Why should Sunday be a special pay day?

This was not a vote this was a legal thing. If this had gone on the ballot we would have had both but they knew $15 was inevitable so they took what they could from us on the way there

>guess it could encourage businesses to just close.

That's exactly it. Ironic that it's had the opposite effect and had people wanting to work on Sunday.

Anyway, it does kind of make sense from the religious perspective, because Sunday is supposed to be a day of rest where you don't work, so it's essentially the same as holiday pay. But that could also be considered discriminatory, since it only goes for the Christian day of rest. Also redundant, because Mass already has a day of rest law which requires at least 1 day off a week.

All the people calling it regressive to phase out Sunday pay are only looking at it from one extremely narrow angle.

Because separation of church and state

Because it’s literally designed to help Catholics over everyone else

That’s only true if you make under $15.

The only problem I have with the $15/hr minimum wage is that it's a set number, which means that as inflation increases, the wage will stay at $15 until this whole battle is fought again in the coming decades to make it $20.

Don't make it $15, make it "a livable wage constantly adjusted for inflation".

I wouldn’t be so sure about that. A lot of pretty progressive ballot initiatives have ended up losing when everyone thought they’d win, and the ballot initiative process has also been used to enact some pretty conservative stuff (e.g. constitutional amendment banning rent control in 1994).

Should be double time on Sundays so don't work Sundays unless it is.

It was a political compromise.

It’s also in part to the new family medical leave act.

Now we have nothing left to compromise to get to a 2023 wage now that we've achieved a 2012 wage

Why should? It's absolutely no different than any other day.

Later addition: sunday isn't a normal day off for a shit load of people and nothing special for non-christains beside a vague childhood memory of knowing school was coming.

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I just looked. RI and MA were the only two states that requires a premium for Sunday. Now just RI. RI's minimum wage is $13 an hour. It was only two states that had the blue laws. RI's is 25% where MA's was 50%.

It also says Holiday pay premium is also only required in MA and RI. It does say that most companies pay holiday pay anyway to keep employees. That is the best way to do it, and may be the case in MA with Sunday.

&#x200B;

https://www.paycor.com/resource-center/articles/is-holiday-pay-mandatory-in-your-state/

It's a weekend for only one segment of the population. My last weekends were Thursday, fri,sat.

MA and RI were the only two states that required a premium for Sunday, but RI's is just 25% where MA's was 50%. RI's min wage is $13.

We are the only two states that require a premium for holidays, and that continues. Noted is that most companies pay premiums for holidays anyway to keep employees. Sometimes the need for employees can be a factor in what one receives.

https://www.paycor.com/resource-center/articles/is-holiday-pay-mandatory-in-your-state/

A major factor is partisan divide within unions themselves. Many unions used to have more negotiating power when they could rely on swift and solid action by the vast majority of their members. Back in the day, if a union needed something from a politician and didn’t get it, there were genuine repercussions at the voting booth. But if they’re all gonna vote either red or blue for other reasons anyway, no repercussions = no accountability for lack of meaningful support.

TIL saturday isn't the weekend

K

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They should create another schedule of increases like they did before. It gradually went up to $15 and now they should target $20 It lets businesses plan for increase year over year that way.

If you work both those days which would be your weekend, I’d say it should be 1.5 for one of them at minimum. The reason for Sunday is, too me, basically the same as why 3rd shift people get payed a little more. Incentive, most do not want to work it

I think that person (and I) would argue Saturday should be OT too.

Yes, it's people with m-f jobs that are. Retail isn't, industry isn't, Amazon is 4 on 3 off for people who are above a floor associate, most logistics companies aren't.....

It need to be higher than 15 bucks for people to be able to live.

does this extend to every industry?

Yeah it was overtime those days. I was working the 4 hour shift schedule

Its MINIMUM wage for a reason. If you work for minimum wage you should expect to be able to afford the minimum required essentials to live.

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Def can be doing that on 15 bucks an hour.

after taxes comes to about 13.5 an hour.

40x13.5 540x4 2160 a week

1800 for a studio apartment 200 for utilities and you have 160 bucks left over for car insurance, car, gas, food. So you gotta work more hours than the 40.

60 gets you an extra 270 a week. 1080 a month. Which working 60 hours a week, that will get you enough to eat and sleep in warm building. Now thats just more than a 1/3 of your life working for shit pay. Id rather sell drugs.

so if you are a nurse and work weekends but don't work say tuesday and wednesday you should get paid more than the nurses who work tuesdays and wednesdays?

im sure that'd go over well

The original intent and connotation be damned it was to encourage a day of rest and with the primary affected group being retail employees, which tend to be lower/working class it was excellent way to benefit those who have seen some of the worst wage growth (only worse are probably truck drivers) since their fruition. The world is a little quieter too when every retailer isn't open for 12 hours a day one day a week.

I'm from NY, and the only company I ever worked for that did something like this(unless we accumulated enough hours for over or double time) was Costco where Sunday you were paid overtime no matter how many hours you worked.

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Sundays are special in that typically the businesses that operate the most on them are retail hence why the wage increase was given to those workers. Weekends are factually busier at these establishments requiring more work as M-F workers are shopping at them.

I think it coincides with the secularization of holidays and transitioning of these events s into major shopping days. If we are going to commercialize everything then no day is special when every day is an opportunity for corporate wealth. In the end, all workers will pay for a secularized society.

This we refused and now they offer double time for Sunday and holidays

For a year. The wage would have to increase. But then, there's nothing saying a business cannot and should not offer time and a half for Sunday.

Or you could do what all students do and have roommates. Bings rent down by 400-800 a month pretty quick. It is minimum wage, minimum standard of living. If you want more go get certification or education to qualify you for a job that pays more.

For one, it was a compromise to get the new minimum wage.

Two, Sunday has stopped being held as a day of rest, or a day in which people can just take it easy. So no one's going to consider it that important, and suggesting it be like a worse Saturday, or leadup to Monday, is therefore pretty normal.

Okay, 2400 2 bed, 1200 instead of 1800. If you wanna get more wild , we can do 5 people 2 bed...

Find me a place that is 400 bucks without people that will end up in a dumpster, because they can't be adults?

Epic sabbath keeper moment

Rent down by 400, 1800-1200 = 400.

I’m a proud Shitstain

ah, i can read very good, much good indeed.

Well, in that case, 400 bucks does go far. That can feed like 3 people for a month.

I mean look at what france is doing. Give an inch they take a mile.

When it was created it was called "A living wage" the minimum REQUIRED TO LIVE. $15 does not meet that criteria. At all.

Do you mean 2160 a month? Because I make well over $15 an hour and don’t take home anywhere close to 2K a week lmao

Yeah, a month, jeez i'm just off today.. dang. .

Sunday use to be a sacred day of the week. (Exodus 20) A day of rest. No business we’re opened. People went to church, or stayed home with family to enjoy time together.

Over time, Stores became more Progressive, and introduced ‘Sunday hours’. If a store was going to be open on ‘The Lords Day’, store owners would have to pay for that luxury, by paying employees time-and-a-half.

Now that most people want consumerism on a daily basis.. with no distinction of days...the incentive is dissipating.

> . If you work for minimum wage you should expect to be able to afford the minimum required essentials to live.

Agreed. You can no longer do that on $15 and hour in the state of Massachusetts

Where are you looking? $2400 for a 2-bed is not the average here. You are about $500 too high in your estimate maybe a bit less but I still regularly see 2-beds for less than $2000.

$15 an hour is only $30k a year at regular 40-hour a week job. That said most of us on SS get even less. It's not a lot, but you can certainly live on that amount.

My kids have Saturday and Sunday off from school.

It is the only 2 days I can interact with them before they fly off the coop. Can you put a price on fishing with your kids a day a week?

How many schools in this state offer Thu-Mon schedule so kids can have Tue-Wed off to go fishing with you?

where

So it looks like MA is unique. The issue is that we’re so used to getting the money.

My weekend is Monday - Friday and my work week is Saturday - Sunday. That's right I have a five day weekend and a two day work week. lol

If you work in retail, Sunday is the busiest day of the week. Depending on the store and type of retail, often even busier than Saturday.

It only makes sense for businesses where that’s the case to offer a greater incentive for employees to want to be there on a day where they have to do exponentially more work.

Call me old fashioned but I’d love to see them bring back the Sunday blue laws where everything was closed on Sundays. At least that way, everyone will get one weekend day off.

Why are you having such a hard time imagining having both? The false dichotomy of only having one of Sunday pay/$15 minimum wage was something entirely invented by politicians.

You have to be insanely stupid to think this is why it was ended.

u/mp246 Can I let you in on a secret?

One of the more annoying things about being responsible for any online community is when someone posts something I agree with, and they make a valid & informative point, but I still have to remove their post(s) because they didn't do so respectfully.

I removed a few of yours. I agree with them. But you decided to call people names and insult them, instead of just getting your point across. -- Please do better in the future. - Thanks.

The sacred day of rest (sabbath) in the Old Testament was actually Saturday. The early Christian church changed it to Sunday.

https://www.epi.org/publication/stagnant-wages-in-2014/

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My parents retired to SC and my dad got a job on a golf course for fun. Minimum wage is under $8 and there’s no such thing as time and a half. It’s pretty nuts how different states are so far apart with wages.

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Business can afford it now. If they can't pay their employees sufficient that the employee can buy necessities, then they can't afford to be in business unless they just do the work themselves

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I don’t think the time and a half pay was to get people to work. When retail “fought” for the right to open on Sundays (it used to be forbidden), the time and a half was what they had to agree to. It was all part of the MA BLUE LAWS.

Why should that day be Sunday? I’m Jewish, so I can’t work or shop on Saturday or Friday night. If businesses are all closed on Sundays I’m fucked.

I wanted to believe you but just looked through Zillow and only saw a handful of $1900 2 beds in Medford, Everett, and Quincy. There’s more options once you go above $2k but the world of paying $2k on avg for a 2 bed is long gone.

Edit to say I’m speaking for the Greater Boston area

‘Blue’ is a term of impropriety. ‘Blue’ language is vulgar. Anything ‘blue’ was not to open on a Sunday. Drinking, gambling, and such. Even after supermarkets would (reluctantly) open on Sundays, Liquor/alcohol stores still remained closed. Repealing the Blue Laws means all the sinful stores are now freely open on Sunday.

“Blue Laws” were created for religious reasons specifically to promote the observance of the Christian day of worship.” -wiki

Catholics are Saturday. Protestants are Sunday. America was founded by Protestants.

I am Catholic, and I believe we were always Sunday too. It was the Jewish faith that is Saturday.

Do you really deserve $15.00/hr for unskilled work?

Certainly wasn't snuck in.

Ok so we'll just leave it at $8 then?

Could be your problem. I don't really look as I'm not in need but I share what I see. To humor this request I just hit up Craigslist housing and checked my local area. I'm in Attleboro. I was quite correct. I see options in Bristol County and along the South Coast as well as in Rhode Island, plenty of Pawtucket and Providence. I knew a friend who was a property owner out in Warre, which tends to run even cheaper. Where have you looked?

You can get a house with 4 bed rooms 2 bath for like 700 in ware. This is true.

I learned something young, don't go near the water of the cove.

I think you lost me at the first sentence. You wrote, "It's 21k working only 40hrs." As this was in response to my minimum wage $15 an hour comment, then I'm guessing you are responding, saying you only make 21k at that? I am not a tax professional and not familiar enough to even hazard a guess at what your rate might be earning $15 an hour for 2,000 hours in a year, but keeping only 21k out of a 30k earnings is a 30% rate which seems really high to me earning so little.

You're missing his point.