Chapter 149

Section 1. In this chapter the following words, unless a different meaning is required by the context or is specifically prescribed, shall have the following meanings: ''Apprentice'', a person defined in section eleven H of chapter twenty-three. ''Assistant commissioner'', the as…

Section 10. In order to make investigations under section six, members or employees of the department or the attorney general's office may at any time enter places of employment, other than places of employment of persons engaged in domestic service in the home of the employer, w…

Section 100. No person shall be required to work for more than six hours during a calendar day without an interval of at least thirty minutes for a meal. Any employer, superintendent, overseer or agent who violates this section shall be punished by a fine of not less than three h…

Section 101. The preceding section shall not apply to iron works, glass works, paper mills, letterpress establishments, print works, bleaching works, or dyeing works; and the attorney general, if it is proved to his satisfaction that in any other factories or workshops or mechani…

Section 102. If a minor shall, without the orders, consent or knowledge of the employer or of the superintendent, overseer or other agent of the employer, labor in a manufacturing or mechanical establishment, factory or workshop during a part of any time allowed for meals in such…

Section 103. Employers shall provide suitable seats for the use of their employees and shall permit such employees to use such seats whenever they are not necessarily engaged in the active duties of their employment, and shall also provide for their use and permit them to use sui…

Section 104. No person shall employ a child under fifteen years of age, or permit him to appear as a participant in a theater, circus or any other public exhibition as a singer, dancer, acrobat, actor or in any other entertainment capacity; but this section shall not prevent the …

Section 105. A license shall not be granted for a theatrical exhibition or public show in which children under fifteen are employed as acrobats or contortionists or in any feats of gymnastics or equestrianism, or in which such children attending the public schools are employed or…

Section 105A. (a) As used in this section, the following words shall, unless the context clearly requires otherwise, have the following meanings:— ''Comparable work'', work that is substantially similar in that it requires substantially similar skill, effort and responsibility an…

Section 105B. Any employer who violates any provision of sections one hundred and five A to one hundred and five C, inclusive, or who discharges or in any other manner discriminates against any employee because such employee has made any complaint to his employer, the attorney ge…

Section 105C. For the purpose of enforcing the provisions of sections one hundred and five A to one hundred and five C, inclusive, the attorney general, or his authorized representative, may enter places of employment, other than places of employment of persons engaged in domesti…

Section 105D. (a) For the purposes of this section, an ''employer'' shall be defined as in subsection 5 of section 1 of chapter 151B. (b) An employee who has completed the initial probationary period set by the terms of employment, not to exceed 3 months, or, if there is no such …

Section 105E. (a) As used in this section, the following words shall have the following meanings unless the context clearly requires otherwise: ''Covered employer'', an employer: (i) with not less than 100 employees in the commonwealth at any time during the prior calendar year; …

Section 105F. (a) As used in this section, the following words shall have the following meanings unless the context clearly requires otherwise: ''Covered employer'', any employer, public or private, that employs 25 or more employees in the commonwealth. ''Pay range'', the annual …

Section 106. All industrial establishments and every person engaged in carrying on a construction project shall provide fresh and pure drinking water to which their employees shall have access during working hours. Any person owning, in whole or in part, managing, controlling or …

Section 107. The water used for humidifying purposes by any person operating a factory or workshop shall be of such a degree of purity as not to give rise to any impure or foul odors, and shall be so used as not to be injurious to the health of persons employed in such factories …

Section 108. In every weaving and spinning department in a textile factory wherein water is introduced for humidifying purposes there shall be provided, maintained and kept in correct working order, for the purpose of recording and regulating the humidity of the atmosphere and th…

Section 109. The preceding section shall not apply to textile factories equipped with such a number and type of standardized self-registering hygrometers, or psychrometers, or such a hygrometric system as the department approves, or using the sling hygrometer frequently to determ…

Section 11. The department may require every physician treating a patient whom he believes to be suffering from any ailment or disease contracted as a result of the nature, circumstances or conditions of the patient's employment to report such information relating thereto as it m…

Section 110. No owner, occupier or manager or person for the time being in charge of a textile factory shall permit the relative humidity in a weaving or spinning department in the textile factory under his control to exceed the following limits:

Section 111. Water used for humidifying purposes in a textile factory shall be taken either from a public supply of drinking water, or from some other source of pure water, or from a supply of water which, although in the opinion of the attorney general not suitable for drinking …

Section 112. Whoever fails to comply with any provision of sections one hundred and eight to one hundred and eleven, inclusive, after being requested so to do by an inspector, shall be punished by a fine of not more than three hundred dollars.

Section 113. Every factory, workshop, manufacturing, mechanical and mercantile establishment, railroad freight house, railway express terminal, public garages and premises used by express, trucking and transportation companies and any other building in which a person is employed,…

Section 114. The industrial health inspectors shall, when obtaining information concerning the proper lighting of industrial establishments, make such investigation concerning the eye and vision in their relation to occupational diseases, including injuries to the eyes of employe…

Section 115. If it appears to an inspector that in any industrial establishment, from the nature of the work or the machinery used in connection therewith, or from other circumstances, there is danger of injury to the eyes of employees engaged in such work, and that the danger of…

Section 116. Upon the request of any inspector of the office of public safety and inspections of the division of occupational licensure or upon the request of any five employees in a factory or workshop, the office of the attorney general shall investigate and ascertain whether o…

Section 117. Every establishment in which one or more persons is employed shall be so ventilated that all gases, vapors, dust, fumes, or any impurity injurious to health, whether generated in the course of the work carried on therein or otherwise, shall, so far as practicable, be…

Section 118. If, in any place of employment, any process is carried on by which dust is caused which may be inhaled to an injurious extent by the persons employed therein, and it appears to an inspector that such inhalation would be substantially diminished without unreasonable e…

Section 119. Any person operating a factory or workshop where emery wheels or belts or buffing wheels or belts injurious to the health of employees are used shall provide such wheels and belts with a hood or hopper connected with suction pipes, and with fans or blowers, in accord…

Section 11A. To assist in the identification and treatment of workers exposed to lead and to reduce the incidence of occupational lead poisoning in the commonwealth, an occupational lead registry shall be established within the department of labor standards. Every clinical labora…

Section 12. If any rule or regulation made under authority of section sixty-four of chapter one hundred and fifty-two conflicts with or differs from a rule or regulation of the department, its rule or regulation shall prevail.

Section 120. Every such wheel shall be fitted with a hood or hopper of such form and so placed that the particles or dust produced by the operation of the wheel or of any belt connected therewith shall fall or will be thrown into such hood or hopper by centrifugal force; and the …

Section 121. The two preceding sections shall not apply to grinding machines upon which water is used at the point of grinding contact, nor to solid emery wheels used in sawmills or in planing mills or in other woodworking establishments, nor to any emery wheel six inches or less…

Section 122. Violations of sections one hundred and seventeen to one hundred and twenty-one, inclusive, shall be punished for the first offence by a fine of not less than twenty-five nor more than one hundred dollars, and for a subsequent offence by the fine aforesaid or by impri…

Section 123. Inspectors, upon receipt of a notice signed by any person having knowledge of the facts that any factory or workshop subject to sections one hundred and nineteen and one hundred and twenty is not provided with the apparatus prescribed thereby, shall visit and inspect…

Section 124. In every manufacturing establishment where the machinery is operated by steam, communication shall be provided between each room where such machinery is placed and the room where the engineer is stationed by means of speaking tubes, electric bells or appliances to co…

Section 125. An occupant or manager of a manufacturing establishment who violates the preceding section shall forfeit to the commonwealth not less than one hundred nor more than five hundred dollars. No prosecution for such violation shall be begun unless a person has for four we…

Section 126. No inside or outside door of any building subject to the supervision of the attorney general which, under the provisions of the state building code, is required as a means of free egress or escape from fire, and no inside or outside door of any industrial establishme…

Section 127. The belting, shafting, gearing, drums and all machinery having movable parts in all factories, workshops, mechanical and mercantile establishments, if so placed as to be dangerous to employees while engaged in their ordinary duties, shall be securely guarded so far a…

Section 128. The owner of a cotton factory erected after May twenty-eighth, eighteen hundred and ninety-six, in which there is any traversing carriage of a self-acting mule installed, or of any cotton factory erected previously to such date in which thereafter such traversing car…

Section 129. The openings of hoistways, hatchways and well holes upon every floor of an industrial establishment shall be protected by sufficient trap doors or self-closing hatches, or by such other safeguards as an inspector directs; and any such openings shall be kept so protec…

Section 129A. On any construction project carried on by any city, town, county or other subdivision of the commonwealth in which a trench is to be dug to a depth of five feet or more, except a trench for laying of water pipes dug to a depth of six and one-half feet which will be …

Section 129B. Whoever, being engaged in construction work, requires or knowingly permits any person employed by him in such work to use certain devices, commonly called stilts, designed to be attached to the feet or legs of such employee for the purpose of elevating him to high p…

Section 129C. Whoever being engaged in the business of transmitting electricity or installing or repairing live wires or electrical equipment knowingly permits a journeyman or first class lineman, while on a pole or structure, to work on live wires in excess of seven hundred and …

Section 129D. No person shall be prohibited from riding in a division of occupational licensure approved man-basket, so-called, carried by any hoisting machinery for the purpose of bungee jumping or for any other division of occupational licensure approved activity.

Section 13. No person shall violate any reasonable rule, regulation, order or requirement made by the department under section six or eleven.

Section 130. Explosive or inflammable compounds or materials shall not be so stored or used in any place of employment as to obstruct or render hazardous the egress of employees in case of fire.

Section 131. Any person owning, managing or operating a factory where looms are used shall equip them with such guards or other devices as will prevent injury to employees from shuttles falling or being thrown from the looms. Such guards or devices shall be made of such material …

Section 132. No proprietor of a factory nor any officer or agent or other person shall require or permit the use of suction shuttles, or any form of shuttle in the use of which any part of the shuttle or any thread is put in the mouth or touched by the lips of the operator. Whoev…

Section 133. In every industrial establishment and railroad establishment there shall be provided suitable, adequate and convenient water closets and washing facilities, separate for each sex and plainly so designated, of such number, in such location, and so constructed, lighted…