CHAPTER XXXII OF THE GENERAL LAWS. [CHAP. 415 OF 1897.] THE LABOR LAW. ARTICLE I. General provisions (§§ 1-21). II. Commissioner of labor statistics (30-32). III. Public employment bureaus (§§ 40-43). IV. Convict-made goods and duties of commissioner of labor V. Factory inspector, assistant and deputies (§§ 60-67). VII. Tenement-made articles (§§ 100-105). VIII. Bakery and confectionery establishments (§§ 110–115). X. State board of mediation and arbitration (§§ 140-149). ments (§§ 160-173). XII. Examination and registration of horseshoers (§§ 180-184). SECTION 1. Short title. 2. Definitions. ARTICLE I. GENERAL PROVISIONS. 3. Hours to constitute a day's work. 4. Violations of the labor law. 5. Hours of labor on street surface and elevated railroads. 6. Hours of labor in brickyards. 7. Regulations of hours of labor on steam surface and elevated rail roads. 8. Payment of wages by receivers. 9. Cash payment of wages. 10. When wages are to be paid. 11. Penalty for violation of preceding sections. 12. Assignment of future wages. 13. Preferences in employment of persons upon public works. 14. Stone used in state or municipal works. 15. Labels, brands, etc., used by labor organizations. 16. Penalty for illegal use of labels, etc.; injunction proceedings. 17. Seats for female employes in factories. 18. Scaffolding for use of employes. SECTION 19. Inspection of scaffolding, ropes, block, pulleys and tackles in cities. 20. Protection of persons employed on buildings in cities. 21. Factory inspector to enforce provisions of article. SECTION 1. Short title.-This chapter shall be known as the labor law. § 2. Definitions.-The term employe, when used in this chapter, means a mechanic, workingman or laborer who works for another for hire. The person employing any such mechanic, workingman or laborer, whether the owner, proprietor, agent, superintendent, foreman or other subordinate, is designated in this chapter as an employer. The term "factory," when used in this chapter, shall be construed to include also any mill, workshop or other manufacturing or business establishment where one or more persons are employed at labor. The term "mercantile establishment," when used in this chapter, means any place where goods, wares or merchandise are offered for sale. Whenever, in this chapter, authority is conferred upon the factory inspector, it shall also be deemed to include his assistant or a deputy acting under his direction. §3. Hours to constitute a day's labor.-Eight hours shall constitute a legal day's work for all classes of employees in this state except those engaged in farm and domestic service unless otherwise provided by law. This section does not prevent an agreement for overwork at an increased compensation except upon work by or for the state or a municipal corporation or by contractors or sub-contractors therewith. Each contract to which the state or a municipal corporation is a party which may involve the employment of laborers workmen or mechanics shall contain a stipulation that no laborer workman or mechanic in the employ of the contractor, sub-contractor or other person doing or contracting to do the whole or a part of the work contemplated by the contract shall be permitted or required to work more than eight hours in any one calendar day except in cases of extraordinary emergency caused by fire, flood or danger to life or property. The wages to be paid for a legal day's work as herein before defined to all classes of such laborers workmen or mechanics upon all such public work or upon any material to be used upon or in connec tion therewith shall not be less than the prevailing rate for a day's work in the same trade or occupation in the locality within the state where such public work on, about or in connection with which such labor is performed in its final or completed form is to be situated erected or used. Each such contract hereafter made shall contain a stipulation that each such laborer, workman or mechanic employed by such contractor, sub-contractor or other person on about or upon such public work shall receive such wages herein provided for. Each contract for such public work hereafter made shall contain a provision that the same shall be void and of no effect unless the person or corporation making or performing the same shall comply with the provisions of this section; and no such person or corporation shall be entitled to receive any sum nor shall any officer, agent or employee of the state or of a municipal corporation pay the same or authorize its payment from the funds under his charge or control to any such person or corporation for work done upon any contract which in its form or manner of performance violates the provisions of this section, but nothing in this section shall be construed to apply to persons regularly employed in state institutions or to engineers, electricians and elevatormen in the department of public buildings during the annual session of the legislature. (As amended by chap. 567 of 1899, and chap. 298 of 1900.) § 4. Violation of the labor law. Any officer agent or employee of this state or of a municipal corporation therein having a duty to act in the premises who violates, evades or knowingly permits the violation or evasion of any of the provisions of this act shall be guilty of malfeasance in office and shall be suspended or removed by the authority having power to appoint or remove such officer agent or employee, otherwise by the governor. Any citizen of this state may maintain proceedings for the suspension or removal of such officer agent or employee or may maintain an action for the purpose of securing the cancellation or avoidance of any contract which by its terms or manner of performance violates this act or for the purpose of preventing any officer, agent or employee of such municipal corporation from paying or authorizing the payment of any public money for work done thereupon. (As amended by chap. 567 of 1899.) 5. Hours of labor on street surface and elevated railroads. -Ten consecutive hours labor, including one-half hour for dinner shall constitute a day's labor in the operation of all street surface and elevated railroads, of whatever motive power, owned or operated by corporations in this state, whose main line of travel or whose routes lie principally within the corporate limits of cities of more than one hundred thousand inhabitants. No employe of any such corporation shall be permitted or allowed. to work more than ten consecutive hours, including one-half hour for dinner, in any one day of twenty-four hours. In cases of accident or unavoidable delay, extra labor may be performed for extra compensation. § 6. Hours of labor in brickyards.-Ten hours, exclusive of the necessary time for meals, shall constitute a legal day's work in the making of brick in brickyards owned or operated by corporations. No corporation owning or operating such brickyard shall require employes to work more than ten hours in any one day, or to commence work before seven o'clock in the morning. But overwork and work prior to seven o'clock in the morning for extra compensation may be performed by agreement between employer and employe. § 7. Regulation of hours of labor on steam surface and elevated railroads.-Ten hours' labor, performed within twelve consecutive hours, shall constitute a legal day's labor in the operation of steam surface and elevated railroads owned and operated within this state, except where the mileage system of running trains is in operation. But this section does not apply to the performance of extra hours of labor by conductors, engineers, firemen and trainmen in case of accident or delay resulting therefrom. For each hour of labor performed in any one day in excess of such ten hours, by any such employe, he shall be paid in addition at least one-tenth of his daily compensation. No person or corporation operating a line of railroad of thirty miles in length or over, in whole or in part within this state, shall permit or require a conductor, engineer, fireman or trainman, who has worked in any capacity for twenty-four consecutive hours, to go again on duty or perform any kind of work, until he has had at least eight hours' rest. § 8. Payment of wages by receivers.-Upon the appointment of a receiver of a partnership or of a corporation organized under the laws of this state and doing business therein, other than a moneyed corporation, the wages of the employes of such partnership or corporation shall be preferred to every other debt or claim. 89. Cash payment of wages.-Every manufacturing, mining, quarrying, mercantile, railroad, street railway, canal, steamboat, telegraph and telephone company, every express company, and every water company, not municipal, shall pay to each employe engaged in its business the wages earned by him in cash. No such company or corporation shall pay its employes in scrip, commonly known as store money orders. § 10. When wages are to be paid.—Every corporation or joint stock association, or person carrying on the business thereof by lease or otherwise, shall pay weekly to each employe the wages earned by him to a day not more than six days prior to the date of such payment. But every person or corporation operating a steam surface railroad shall, on or before the twentieth day of each month, pay the employes thereof the wages earned by them during the preceding calendar month. 11. Penalty for violation of preceding sections.-If a corporation or joint stock association, its lessee or other person carrying on the business thereof, shall fail to pay the wages of an employe as provided in this article, it shall forfeit to the people of the state the sum of fifty dollars for each such failure, to be recovered by the factory inspector in his name of office in a civil action; but an action shall not be maintained therefor, unless the factory inspector shall have given to the employer at least ten days' written notice, that such an action will be brought if the wages due are not sooner paid as provided in this article. On the trial of such action, such corporation or association shall not be allowed to set up any defense, other than a valid assignment of such wages, a valid set-off against the same, or the absence of such employe from his regular place of labor at the time of payment, or an actual tender to such employe at the time of the payment of the wages so earned by him, or a breach of contract by such employe or a denial of the employment. § 12. Assignment of future wages.-No assignment of future wages, payable weekly, or monthly in case of a steam surface railroad corporation, shall be valid if made to the corporation or association from which such wages are to become due, or to any person on its behalf, or if made or procured to be made to any person for the purpose of relieving such corporation or association from the obligation to pay weekly, or monthly in case of a steam surface railroad corporation. Charges for groceries, provisions or clothing shall not be a valid off-set for wages in behalf of any such corporation or association. |