Massachusetts Statutes

Section 138. Whoever wilfully destroys, defaces, injures or defiles any toilet appliances provided in any place of employment shall be punished by a fine of not more than fifty dollars.

Section 139. In any mercantile or manufacturing establishment or hotel or railroad where the nature of the work renders it necessary for any or all employees, before beginning work, to make a substantially complete change of clothing, exclusive of underclothing, separate lockers,…

Section 14. The commissioner shall make an annual report, including the reports required by sections one hundred and sixty and one hundred and seventy of this chapter, section ten of chapter one hundred and fifty, section fifteen of chapter one hundred and fifty-one, and section …

Section 141. Every person operating a factory, shop or mechanical establishment where machinery is used for any manufacturing or other purpose except for elevators, or for heating or hoisting apparatus, shall keep and maintain, free of expense to the employees, such medical or su…

Section 141A. No person or persons employed in a textile factory, whose principal employment is the tending or repairing of machinery, shall be required to lift by hand, as a regular part of his or their duties, any object or objects the combined weight of which totals more than …

Section 142. All publishers and printers shall use a sanitary cloth or other sanitary material in cleaning their presses.

Section 142A. No person shall keep for sale, sell, transport or store, and no person shall have for use in any manufacturing, mechanical or mercantile establishment, or in any other place of employment, benzene represented by the chemical formula C/6H/6, in sections one hundred a…

Section 142B. No person shall keep for sale, sell, transport or store, and no person shall have for use in any manufacturing, mechanical or mercantile establishment, or any other place of employment, any material containing benzol, carbon tetrachloride or other substance which, i…

Section 142C. The words and any warning required by sections one hundred and forty-two A and one hundred and forty-two B shall be clear and conspicuous, and shall be of such size and so placed as the director of labor and workforce development and the commissioner of public healt…

Section 142D. The director of labor and workforce development and the commissioner of public health acting jointly may, by reasonable rules and regulations, exempt from the provisions of sections one hundred and forty-two A and one hundred and forty-two B, under such restrictions…

Section 142E. For the protection of persons exposed to possible injury by any material or substance which in the joint opinion of the departments of labor and workforce development and of public health, acting pursuant to sections one hundred and forty-two A and one hundred and f…

Section 142F. Whoever violates any provision of section one hundred and forty-two A, one hundred and forty-two B or one hundred and forty-two C, or any rule or regulation made under section one hundred and forty-two A, one hundred and forty-two B, one hundred and forty-two C, one…

Section 142G. The attorney general shall enforce the provisions of sections one hundred and forty-two A to one hundred and forty-two F, inclusive, and the rules and regulations made hereunder in any manufacturing or mechanical establishment or in any other place of employment in …

Section 143. The following words, as used in this section and in sections one hundred and forty-three A and one hundred and forty-four to one hundred and forty-seven H, inclusive, unless the context otherwise requires, shall have the following meanings:— ''Employer'', any person …

Section 143A. Protection of factory industries from undue competition and protection of the health and well-being of the workers is a matter which concerns the general welfare of the public. Remedy for this evil has been sought through the enactment of laws to protect health and …

Section 144. The manufacture of or work upon any of the following by industrial homework shall be unlawful, and no permit issued under section one hundred and forty-seven or certificate issued under section one hundred and forty-seven A shall be deemed to authorize such manufactu…

Section 145. The attorney general may make or cause to be made an investigation of any industry which employs industrial homeworkers, in order to determine whether the wages and conditions of employment of industrial homeworkers in such industry are injurious to their health and …

Section 146. Before making such order the attorney general shall hold a public hearing or hearings at which an opportunity to be heard shall be afforded to any employer, or representative of employers, and any industrial homeworker, or representative of industrial homeworkers, an…

Section 146A. The employer shall, wherever industrial homework is permitted, distribute directly to his homeworkers all material and articles of homework. No employer shall give out any material or articles for homework through any homework contractors or distributors. No person …

Section 147. No materials for manufacture or to be worked upon by industrial homework shall be delivered to any person in the commonwealth unless the employer so delivering them, or his agent if the employer is not a resident of or located within this commonwealth, has in his pos…

Section 147A. No person shall engage in industrial homework within the commonwealth unless he has in his possession a valid certificate issued to him by the attorney general under authority of this section, hereinafter and in sections one hundred and forty-seven B to one hundred …

Section 147B. No employer shall deliver or cause to be delivered to any person any materials or articles to be manufactured or worked upon by industrial homework unless there has been conspicuously affixed to each article or, if impossible so to affix, then to the package or othe…

Section 147C. Any article which is being manufactured or worked upon in a home in violation of any provision of sections one hundred and forty-four to one hundred and forty-seven H, inclusive, may be removed by the attorney general or his authorized representative and may be reta…

Section 147D. No person in possession of an employer's permit shall deliver or receive, or cause to be delivered or received, any articles for or as a result of industrial homework unless he shall keep in such form, and forward to the attorney general at such intervals as the att…

Section 147E. The attorney general shall make rules and regulations for the enforcement of sections one hundred and forty-four to one hundred and forty-seven H, inclusive, and to maintain existing wage, hour and other labor standards established by law or regulation for workers i…

Section 147F. In making any investigation or examination under authority of any provision of sections one hundred and forty-four to one hundred and forty-seven H, inclusive, the attorney general or his duly authorized representative may require the attendance and testimony of wit…

Section 147G. In addition to any penalties otherwise prescribed in sections one hundred and forty-four to one hundred and forty-seven H, inclusive, any employer or his agent who, without having in his possession a valid employer's permit, delivers or causes to be delivered to ano…

Section 147H. The provisions of sections one hundred and forty-three to one hundred and forty-seven G, inclusive, shall not apply to organizations incorporated in the commonwealth for educational or philanthropic purposes, or to homework performed under the supervision of the Mas…

Section 148. Every person having employees in his service shall pay weekly or bi-weekly each such employee the wages earned by him to within six days of the termination of the pay period during which the wages were earned if employed for five or six days in a calendar week, or to…

Section 148A. No employee shall be penalized by an employer in any way as a result of any action on the part of an employee to seek his or her rights under the wages and hours provisions of this chapter. Any employer who discharges or in any other manner discriminates against any…

Section 148B. (a) For the purpose of this chapter and chapter 151, an individual performing any service, except as authorized under this chapter, shall be considered to be an employee under those chapters unless:— (1) the individual is free from control and direction in connectio…

Section 148C. (a) As used in this section and section 148D, the following words, unless the context clearly requires otherwise, shall have the following meanings:— ''Child'', a biological, adopted, or foster child, a stepchild, a legal ward, or a child of a person who has assumed…

Section 148D. The executive office of health and human services, in consultation with the attorney general, shall develop and implement a multilingual outreach program to inform employees, parents, and persons who are under the care of a health care provider about the availabilit…

Section 149. A justice or clerk of a district court, or a trial justice, may upon the application of any employee issue a summons to an employer to appear and show cause why a warrant should not issue against him for a violation of section one hundred and forty-eight. Upon the re…

Section 15. With the approval of the associate commissioners and the assistant commissioner, the commissioner may divide the commonwealth into inspection districts, and assign the necessary number of inspectors thereto.

Section 150. The attorney general may make complaint or seek indictment against any person for a violation of section 148. On the trial no defence for failure to pay as required, other than the attachment of such wages by trustee process or a valid assignment thereof or a valid s…

Section 150A. Every person making a deduction from wages of any employee for social security, unemployment compensation benefits, pension, vacation or health and welfare funds, state taxes, federal taxes, dues check-off and credit unions and every person engaged in contracting or…

Section 150B. No labor union, or person acting in its behalf, shall require any person, as a condition of securing or continuing employment, to pay any fee or assessment other than such initiation fees, dues and assessments as are, by the constitution and by-laws of such union, c…

Section 150C. Any person having employees in his service who withholds or deducts wages from employees for the purpose of purchasing or contributing toward the purchase of a blanket or general policy of insurance pursuant to section one hundred and ten of chapter one hundred and …

Section 151. Persons carrying on any manufacturing business employing one hundred or more persons shall, on the day chosen as pay day, pay such of their employees as are on that day working in the manufacturing establishment, before the close of the regular working hours.

Section 152. There shall not be deducted from the wages of an employee in any factory, workshop, manufacturing, mechanical or mercantile establishment, or from the wages of a mechanic, workman or laborer, on account of the employee's coming late to work, a sum in excess of the pr…

Section 152A. (a) As used in this section, the following words, unless a different meaning is required by the context or is specifically prescribed, shall have the following meanings:— ''Wait staff employee'', a person, including a waiter, waitress, bus person, person in a quick …

Section 153. No system used by manufacturers for grading the work of a weaver shall affect or lessen the wages of the weaver except for imperfections in his own work; and in no case shall the wages of those engaged in weaving be affected by fines or otherwise unless the imperfect…

Section 154. No employer shall impose a fine upon an employee engaged at weaving for imperfections arising during the process of weaving. Whoever violates this or the preceding section shall for the first offence be punished by a fine of not more than one hundred dollars and for …

Section 155. The occupier or manager of every cotton factory shall supply to each person engaged as a weaver in said factory and paid by the piece, cut or yard a printed or written ticket with each warp which shall contain the following specifications as to the work to be done an…

Section 156. The occupier or manager of every textile factory shall post in every room where any employees work by the job, in legible writing or printing, and in sufficient numbers to be easily accessible to such employees, specifications of the character of each kind of work to…