Rhode Island is apparently the only U.S. state that requires manufacturers to pay employees overtime if they work a Sunday shift, even if they haven’t exceeded a 40 hour work week, according to the Greater Providence Chamber of Commerce.
Massachusetts has a similar law requiring retail stores to pay staff members time-and-a-half for working on Sundays.
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Earlier this year a group of representatives from the Chamber of Commerce and the local AFL-CIO chapter were instrumental in brokering changes to Rhode Island’s Sunday labor laws, laws some would call antiquated and others might call labor-sensitive. The General Assembly passed legislation on July 2 eliminating the need for businesses that operate on Sundays and holidays to obtain work permits; broadened exemptions, so boat repair and telephone service companies don’t have to pay overtime for Sunday work unless the employee worked more than 40 hours; and changed a rule stipulating that financial services companies had to run 24 hours a day, seven days a week, to qualify for exemption status.
It marked the first time that business owners and executives were able to make changes in the Sunday laws, according to Laurie White, the Chamber’s vice president of operations. But the Sunday overtime pay requirement for the manufacturing industry escaped unscathed. It is a sticking point for manufacturing executives, who argue the state should not dictate time-and-a-half pay for Sunday work when federal law says overtime is only necessary if a worker puts in more than 40 hours a week. This state law, some said, can increase costs by requiring companies to pay overtime to workers who willingly work Sundays as part of their 40 hour week. White said that Chamber members plan to lobby for further changes in the law during the next legislative session.
“Given the fact that we’re a global economy now, we have to make sure that industry has the opportunity to operate seven days a week,” she said.
George Nee, secretary-treasurer for the Rhode Island AFL-CIO, was also involved in the negotiations representing labor. He could not be reached for comment early last week.
At Original Bradford Soap Works Inc. in West Warwick, employees are paid time-and-a-half when there is a Sunday shift, explained President John H. Howland.
“Because we don’t routinely run on Sunday, we realize we should be paying a premium,” Howland said. “If we (ran a Sunday shift regularly) we would be hiring people with that understanding.”
There are companies in Rhode Island that pay workers overtime for Sunday work as policy and regularly operate Sunday shifts despite the time-and-a-half. For instance, about 500 union workers at the Osram Sylvania Inc. plant in Central Falls are entitled to time-and-a-half pay if they work Sundays, because of a union contract, according to Cynthia Dooley, a company spokeswoman. That stipulation is included in contracts with workers at all 20 of the company’s plants in the United States and Canada, she said.
And Stanley Fastening Systems in East Greenwich also runs a Sunday shift, paying overtime, according to Human Resources Manager Alan Tiexeira.
“It hasn’t been an issue for us,” he said. In Bradford’s case, however, Howland said, “if we were to rethink how our manufacturing operation is organized, and move more in the direction of being a continuous process operation, we would consider the mandatory time-and-a-half rule onerous.”
It gets “onerous” because in times when a company, such as Bradford, adds a Sunday shift “it’s costing you 50 percent premium to run that process. The demand may be there, but I don’t believe as a general rule that you can sell your product at a 50 percent premium just because it was manufactured on Sunday.”
“You have to charge the same whether it was made on Sunday or Wednesday. In the marketplace that cost doesn’t get recognized,” Howland said. “I think that the work rules were created in a different environment, and fundamentally our economy and our society runs on a seven day week now.” Howland said when dealing with employees who work Sundays as a regular shift, companies should have the option to “pay people based on market conditions.”
It is a “double standard,” he contends to single out any one industry to have to pay overtime for Sundays. “We think the 40-hour work rule takes care of this issue”
Since former Economic Development Corp. Director Marcel Valois proposed changing the law at the beginning of Gov. Lincoln Almond’s administration, this has “been a contentious issue” in Rhode Island, said Matthew Bodah, assistant professor and research coordinator at the University of Rhode Island’s Labor Research Center. Among the reasons for the contention, he explained, the law “also said nobody can be required to work on Sunday. It’s quite a nice statutory benefit for the worker … if they ask the worker and the worker says no, then the worker can’t be fired.”
Why do manufacturers want to change the law then? For companies that run their machines all the time and can’t shut them down, Bodah said there are several reasons.
“Theoretically it’s possible you could have the entire workforce say, well it’s nice that you have the exemption, but we choose not to work,” he said. But it’s also the money.
“I think it’s important to look at compensation too,” Bodah said. “Manufacturing wages in Rhode Island are not leading the nation, even with the time-and-a-half requirement on Sundays. I think if you look at overall wages it wouldn’t be out of line with the rest of the nation.”
