MassMutual hit with lawsuit over pay, desk-use charges on sales employees
July 20, 2017 by Greg Ryan
Massachusetts Mutual Life Insurance Co. has been hit with a class action lawsuit that claims it is improperly charging sales employees for using desks at its offices and denying them minimum wage and overtime pay.
A former MassMutual sales employee, Jason Berube, leveled the allegations against the Springfield-based financial giant in Suffolk County Superior Court late last month. He is bringing the suit on behalf of sales reps at the company’s call centers in Boston, Burlington, Ashland and elsewhere.
The same law firm representing Berube, Boston’s Regan Lane LLP, has filed similar lawsuits against subsidiaries of New York Life and Northwestern Mutual, also in Suffolk County court, in the past month.
The allegations hinge on the difference between “inside” and “outside” sales employees under U.S. and Massachusetts law. If a commissioned worker primarily makes sales calls on the road, he or she is typically considered an outside sales representative and is not required to receive minimum wages and overtime pay.
Berube claims, however, that he and other MassMutual workers like him should be considered “inside” sales employees, who are due minimum and overtime wages. They sold insurance products from MassMutual offices and were not required to exercise “independent judgment on matters of significance,” he said.
MassMutual also reduced the workers’ wages by charging them for business expenses such as the use of their desk at the company’s offices and for Internet service, according to the lawsuit.
A MassMutual spokesman declined to comment on the allegations.
