Effective April 1, 2015, Massachusetts will become the fourth state (after New York, California and Hawaii) to extend employment protections specifically to domestic workers. The “Domestic Workers’ Bill of Rights”1 creates new legal obligations for any individual or family in Massachusetts who employs a domestic worker, and is expected to affect approximately 67,000 nannies, housekeepers, caregivers and other domestic workers. Although portions of the law clarify that domestic workers are covered by existing state employment laws, the statute creates a number of new rights for domestic workers—and obligations for their employers—such as recordkeeping and notice requirements, a statutory right to privacy, and limitations on when and how a live-in domestic worker may be terminated. Almost all of these rights apply regardless of how many hours the person works for an individual or family.
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