Rhode Island § 28-12-2 - Minimum Wages

§ 28-12-2. Definitions.

As used in this chapter:

(1) “Advisory board” means a board created as provided in § 28-12-6.

(2) “Commissioner” means the minimum-wage commissioner appointed by the director of labor and training as chief of the division of labor standards.

(3) “Director” means the director of labor and training, or the director’s duly authorized representative.

(4) “Employ” means to suffer or to permit to work.

(5)(i) “Employee” includes any individual suffered or permitted to work by an employer.

(ii) “Employee” shall not include:

(A) [Deleted by P.L. 2024, ch. 251, § 1 and P.L. 2024, ch. 252, § 1.]

(B) Any individual employed by the United States;

(C) Any individual engaged in the activities of an educational, charitable, religious, or nonprofit organization where the employer-employee relationship does not, in fact, exist, or where the services rendered to the organizations are on a voluntary basis;

(D) Newspaper deliverers on home delivery, shoe shiners in shoe shine establishments, caddies on golf courses, pin persons in bowling alleys, ushers in theatres;

(E) Traveling salespersons or outside salespersons;

(F) Service performed by an individual in the employ of the individual’s son, daughter, or spouse and service performed by a child under the age of twenty-one (21) in the employ of the child’s father or mother;

(G) Any individual employed between May 1 and October 1 in a resort establishment that regularly serves meals to the general public and that is open for business not more than six (6) months a year;

(H) Any individual employed by an organized camp that does not operate for more than seven (7) months in any calendar year. However, this exemption does not apply to individuals employed by the camp on an annual, full-time basis. “Organized camp” means any camp, except a trailer camp, having a structured program including, but not limited to, recreation, education, and religious, or any combination of these.

(6) “Employer” includes any individual, partnership, association, corporation, business trust, or any person, or group of persons, acting directly, or indirectly, in the interest of an employer, in relation to an employee.

(7) “Occupation” means any occupation, service, trade, business, industry, or branch or group of industries or employment or class of employment in which individuals are gainfully employed.

(8) “Wage” means compensation due to an employee by reason of the employee’s employment.