Session Laws

Whereas, The deferred operation of this act would tend to defeat its purpose, which is to immediately increase the minimum wage for certain employees, therefore it is hereby declared to be an emergency law, necessary for the immediate preservation of the public convenience.

Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives in General Court assembled, and by the authority of the same, as follows:

SECTION 1. Section 1 of chapter 151 of the General Laws, as appearing in the 1994 Official Edition, is hereby amended by striking out the second sentence and inserting in place thereof the following sentence:- A wage of less than four dollars and seventy-five cents per hour, in any occupation, as defined in this chapter, shall conclusively be presumed to be oppressive and unreasonable, wherever the term "minimum wage" is used in this chapter, unless the commissioner has expressly approved or shall expressly approve the establishment and payment of a lesser wage under the provisions of sections seven and nine.

SECTION 2. Said section 1 of said chapter 151 is hereby further amended by striking out the second sentence and inserting in place thereof the following sentence:- A wage of less than five dollars and twenty-five cents per hour, in any occupation, as defined in this chapter, shall conclusively be presumed to be oppressive and unreasonable, wherever the term "minimum wage" is used in this chapter, unless the commissioner has expressly approved or shall expressly approve the establishment and payment of a lesser wage under the provisions of sections seven and nine.

SECTION 3. Section 7 of said chapter 151, as so appearing, is hereby amended by striking out, in line 29, the word "forty" and inserting in place thereof the following word:- fifty.

SECTION 4. The provisions of section three of this act shall not result in the reduction in the wage of any employee covered thereby below the wage of two dollars and fifty-five cents per hour.

SECTION 5. Sections one and three shall take effect on January first, nineteen hundred and ninety-six and section two shall take effect on January first, nineteen hundred and ninety-seven.

SECTION 6. In the event the federal government changes its definition of minimum wage, the commissioner of labor and industries is hereby authorized and directed to review any such changes, to determine whether chapter one hundred and fifty-one of the General Laws or any other laws of the commonwealth pertaining to the minimum wage should be amended, and to report to the general court, within ninety days of the passage of any such federal law, the results of his review and his recommendations, if any, together with drafts of legislation necessary to carry his recommendations into effect by filing the same with the clerk of the house of representatives within said ninety days.