Contracts for forbidden. Protection of interests of SECTION 140. Except as provided in the four preceding sections, no person shall, by a special contract with his employees, exempt himself from liability which he may be under to them for injuries suffered by them in their employment and resulting from the negligence of the employer or of a person in his employ. SECTION 141. A justice of the superior court may, upon petition setting forth in ordinary language that the servant or em- employees. 1908, 380. ployee of a certain firm, person, corporation or association has been injured in the course of his employment, through some defect in the ways, works or machinery owned or used by the employer, and that it is necessary in order to protect the interests of the injured person that an examination should be made of the ways, works or machinery through whose defect the injury occurred, and after such notice to the employer as any justice of said court may direct or approve, and a hearing, grant an order directing the employer or person in control of such ways, works or machinery to permit the person named in said order to make such examination, under such conditions as shall be set forth in the order. accidents to R. L. 106, SECTION 144. All manufacturers, manufacturing corporations Report of and proprietors of mercantile establishments shall forthwith employees. send to the chief of the district police a written notice of any acci- 17. dent to an employee while at work in any factory, manufacturing or mercantile establishment operated by them, if the accident results in the death of said employee or in such bodily injury as to prevent him from returning to his work within four days thereafter. The chief of the district police shall forthwith transmit to the sender of such notice a written or printed acknowledgment of the receipt thereof, and he shall keep a record of all accidents so reported to him, of the name of the person injured, of the city or town in which the accident occurred and the cause thereof, and shall include an abstract of said record in his annual report. Whoever fails to send notice of an accident as required by this section shall be punished by a fine of not more than twenty dollars. Acts of 1910, Chapter 445. An Act to Regulate Advertisements and Solicitations for Employees during Strikes, Lockouts or Other Labor Disputes. SECTION 1. If an employer, during the continuance of a strike among his employees, or during the continuance of a lockout or other labor trouble among his employees, publicly advertises in newspapers, or by posters or otherwise, for employees, or by Advertisement for employees during strikes, etc. Penalty. Employers and systems, etc. By-law to be approved by the insurance commissioner, etc. himself or his agents solicits persons to work for him to fill the places of strikers he shall plainly and explicitly mention in such advertisements or oral or written solicitations that a strike, lockout or other labor disturbance exists. SECTION 2. If any person, firm, association or corporation violates any provision of this act, he or it shall be punished by a fine not exceeding one hundred dollars for each offence. proved April 25, 1910. Acts of 1910, Chapter 359. [Ap An Act to authorize Employers and Employees to Establish Co operative Retirement, Annuity or Pension Systems. SECTION 1. Employees, officers and agents of any corporation, firm or individual, and the corporation, firm or individual by which they are employed, are hereby authorized to form an association for the purpose of providing annuities, pensions or endowments for employees retiring from their employment on account of age, under a system by which the participating employees contribute to the funds of the association a percentage or portion of their salaries or wages as fixed by the by-laws of the association, to be deducted by the employer and paid to the association, and the employer contributes to the funds of the association in the manner and to the extent fixed in said by-laws. The funds so provided shall be held by trustees independently of other funds of the employer, for the purchase or payment of annuities, pensions or endowments to participating employees upon their retirement from service on account of age, for the payments to the representatives or appointees of any participator dying before reaching the age of retirement, for the payment to any participator retiring from service before becoming entitled to a pension or annuity and for the payment of the expenses of administration. An association formed under the authority of this act shall not be subject to the provisions of chapter five hundred and seventy-six of the acts of the year nineteen hundred and seven, or to such other provisions of law as relate to insurance companies or associations, except as herein provided. SECTION 2. The by-laws of every such association shall be approved by the insurance commissioner, and shall prescribe the manner in which and the officers and agents by whom the purpose of the association may be carried out and the manner in which its funds may be invested and paid out. Such association shall be deemed to be formed when its by-laws have been approved and agreed to by the employer and by the employees by vote of two thirds of all employees present and voting at a meeting called by the employer for the purpose, and have been approved by said commissioner. Such association shall annually, on or before Annual report. the first day of February, report to the insurance commissioner such statements of its membership and financial transactions for the year ending on the preceding thirty-first day of December as the commissioner may consider necessary to show its business and standing. Said commissioner may verify such statement by an examination of the books and papers of the association; and whoever, having charge or custody of said books and papers, neglects to comply with the provisions of this section shall be punished by a fine of not more than five hundred dollars. SECTION 3. The property of every such association, and the portion of the wages or salary of an employee deducted or to be deducted under this act, the right of an employee to an annuity, pension or endowment, and all his rights in the funds of the association, shall be exempt from taxation and from the operation of any law relating to bankruptcy or insolvency, and shall not be liable to attachment by trustee process or be liable to be taken on execution or on any other process legal or equitable to satisfy any debt or liability of the employer or of any member of the association. SECTION 4. This act shall take effect upon its passage. [Approved May 26, 1910. Acts of 1907, Chapter 581, §§ 3, 4, 5. An Act to prohibit the Publication of Unsigned Political Advertisements and the making, by certain Corporations, of Political Contributions. SECTION 3. No corporation carrying on the business of a bank, trust, surety, indemnity, safe deposit, insurance, railroad, street railway, telegraph, telephone, gas, electric light, heat, power, canal, aqueduct, or water company, or any company having the right to take or condemn land or to exercise franchises in public ways granted by the Commonwealth or by any county, city or town, and no trustee or trustees owning or holding the majority of the stock of such a corporation, shall pay or contribute in order to aid, promote, or prevent the nomination or election of any person to public office, or in order to aid, promote or antagonize the interests of any political party, or to influence or affect the vote on any question submitted to the voters. No person shall solicit or receive such payment or contribution from such corporation or such holders of stock. Exempt from taxation, etc. Certain corporations prohibited from making political contributions, etc. See 1908, 483. Penalty. When to take effect. Sale of coke and charcoal. 1901, 423, § 1. Substitute. 1908, 205, § 1. Sale of coke and charcoal. 1908, 205, § 1. Baskets and SECTION 4. Any corporation which violates any provision of this act shall be punished by a fine of not more than ten thousand dollars, and any officer, director or agent of a corporation violating any provision of this act, who authorized such violation, or any person who violates, or in any way knowingly aids or abets the violation of, any provision of this act, shall be punished by a fine of not more than one thousand dollars, or by imprisonment for not more than one year. SECTION 5. This act shall take effect on the first day of Revised Laws, Chapter 57, §§ 86 to 93 inclusive. [Approved [SECTION 86. Coke in quantities of less than one hundred pounds, and charcoal in any quantities, shall be sold only by baskets or in bags, and when sold by baskets shall be kept, until delivered, in the same baskets in which the goods are measured. Coke sold in quantities of one hundred pounds or more shall be sold only by baskets or by weight.] Section 86. Coke in quantities of less than one hundred pounds, and charcoal in any quantities, shall be sold by weight or by measure, and shall be kept until delivered in the same bags or baskets in which the goods are weighed or measured, and coke and charcoal thus sold shall be exempt from the provisions of section eighty-eight of this chapter. When sold by weight, such bags or baskets shall be plainly marked with the name of the person who puts up the same and the weight of the coke or charcoal therein, the words so marked being in solid Roman capital letters, at least one inch in height. Coke sold in quantities of one hundred pounds or more shall be sold only by weight. They SECTION 87. Baskets used in selling coke or charcoal by measure shall be of the capacity of two bushels, of one bushel, or of one half bushel, Massachusetts standard dry measure. shall be sealed, and their capacity plainly marked thereon by a sealer of weights and measures of the city or town in which the person using them resides or does business, and shall be filled level full. Bags of coke or charcoal, or unpacked kindling wood not exceeding six inches in length sold or offered for sale by measure shall contain, and shall be sold as containing, one half bushel, dry measure, standard aforesaid, of said goods, and shall be plainly marked with the name of the person who puts up the same, and the words in capital letters, each at least one inch in certificate. § 3. 1910, 219, § 1. be sold in bundles not less than twenty-seven inches in circumference: provided, that the wood shall be cut not less than two and one quarter inches long. SECTION 88. Whoever sells coke, charcoal or coal by weight Weighing and shall without cost to the purchaser cause the goods to be weighed 1901, 423, by a sworn weigher of the city or town in which they are [sold] Amended. weighed and shall cause a certificate stating the name and place of business of the seller, and either the identifying number, of 1998, 394. which a permanent record shall be kept, or, the name of the person taking charge of the goods after the weighing, as given to the weigher on his request, the tare weight and the quantity of the goods, to be signed by the weigher. Such certificate shall be given to said person and shall by him be given only to the owner of the goods or his agent when he unloads the same; and every such person, owner or agent shall, on request and without charge, therefor, permit any sealer of weights and measures of any city or town to examine the certificate and to make a copy thereof. SECTION 89. A sealer of weights and measures of a city or town in which any quantity of coke, charcoal, or coal for delivery is found may, in his discretion, direct the person in charge of the goods to convey the same without delay or charge to scales designated by such sealer, who shall there determine the quantity of the goods, and, if they are not in baskets or bags, shall determine their weight [with the weight of the vehicle in which they are carried], with the tare weight, and shall direct said person to return to such scales forthwith after unloading the goods; and upon such return, the sealer shall [weigh the vehicle] determine the tare weight. The scales designated by the sealer as aforesaid may be the public scales of the city or town or any other scales therein which have been duly tested and sealed, and shall be such scales as are in his judgment the most convenient of those available. SECTION 90. A sealer of weights and measures of a city or town and a sworn weigher shall keep in a book used by him solely for that purpose a record of all baskets sealed by him as aforesaid, and of all weighings and determinations of quantities of coke, charcoal or coal made by him as aforesaid. Such record shall be made at the time of measuring or weighing, and shall state the day and hour of the measuring or weighing, the name and place of business of the seller of the goods, the name of the owner of the baskets or of the purchaser of the goods as given to him on Sealer may direct goods to be weighed. 1901, 423, $4. Amended. § 3. 1902, 453, 1910, 219, § 2. Record to be weights and 1901, 423, kept of measures. § 5. |