MANUAL OF THE LABOR LAWS. STATE BOARD OF LABOR AND INDUSTRIES. Acts of 1912, Chapter 726. Appointment.-SECTION 1. There is hereby established a state board of labor and industries to be composed of five persons who shall be appointed by the governor, with the advice and consent of the council. The terms of office of the members of the board shall be five years, except that when first appointed one of the members shall be appointed for four years, one for three years, one for two years, and one for one year, the member at that time appointed for five years to be chairman. Thereafter a member shall be appointed each year, for a term of five years. One member of the board shall be an employer of labor, one a wage-earner, one a physician or a sanitary engineer, and at least one a woman. The governor, with the advice and consent of the council, shall have power to fill by appointment for the unexpired term any vacancy that may occur in the board. Commissioner of Labor. —SECTION 2. There shall be a commissioner of labor, who shall be appointed by the board. He shall serve for such term as the board may determine, and may be removed at any time by the board by vote of a majority of its members. Upon such removal a statement of reasons therefor shall be filed by the board with the governor. The commissioner of labor shall devote all his time to the affairs of the board, under its direction. Salaries, Expenses, Offices. -SECTION 3. The salary of the chairman of the board shall be fifteen hundred dollars a year, and the salaries of each of the other members of the board shall be one thousand dollars a year. The salary of the commissioner of labor shall be determined by the board, and shall not be less than five thousand nor more than seventy-five hundred dollars a year. The board may incur other necessary expenses for carrying out the provisions of this act, not exceeding the annual appropriation therefor. It shall be provided with offices in the state house or in some other suitable building in the city of Boston, and elsewhere in the commonwealth if approved by the governor and council. Investigation.-SECTION 4. The board may investigate the conditions existing in any line of industry carried on by inhabitants of the commonwealth, and such investigations may be extended outside of the commonwealth to procure information for the promotion of industrial development or the improvement of industrial conditions. The board shall receive all complaints concerning conditions existing in any industry carried on by inhabitants of the commonwealth, or concerning alleged violations of any laws enforced under its direction, and shall thereupon make or direct all needful and appropriate investigations and prosecutions. It may employ experts or other necessary assistants to aid in the performance of any duty imposed upon it by law. It may make rules not inconsistent with existing law for carrying out the provisions of this act. Enforcement of Laws. SECTION 5. All powers and duties with reference to the enforcement of laws relating to labor and the employment thereof, the inspection and licensing of buildings or parts of buildings used for industrial purposes, the inspection and licensing of the workers therein and of all other industrial employees within the commonwealth, the enforcement of laws relating to the employment of women and minors, and the institution of proceedings in prosecution of violations of any of the said laws, now conferred or imposed by law upon the state board of health or state inspectors of health, or upon the chief of the district police, the inspectors of factories and public buildings of the district police, or the inspection department of the district police, or the deputy chief of the inspection department of the district police, with the exception of such duties and powers as are now imposed by law upon the chief inspector of boilers or the boiler inspectors of the district police, and with the further exception of such powers and duties as relate to the inspection of buildings under erection, alteration or repair, are hereby transferred to the state board of labor and industries. Said board may delegate to such commissioner, deputy commissioners or inspectors as are under its direction such of the above powers as it may deem necessary to carry out the provisions of this act. Buildings used for industrial purposes under the meaning of this act shall include factories, workshops, bakeries, mechanical establishments, laundries, foundries, tenement-house workrooms, all other buildings or parts of buildings in which manufacturing is carried on, and mercantile establishments as defined in section seventeen of chapter five hundred and fourteen of the acts of the year nineteen hundred and nine. SECTION 6. Nothing in this act shall be construed to prevent the state inspectors of health from entering buildings used for industrial purposes when required by their duty to protect the health of the community, especially as prescribed by section three of chapter five hundred and thirty-seven of the acts of the year nineteen hundred and seven, except that the duty therein prescribed of informing themselves concerning the health of minors in factories is hereby transferred to the state board of labor and industries. The said board shall promptly report to the state board of health all cases of disease in industrial establishments which may affect the health of the community. Deputy Commissioners. - SECTION 7. The board may appoint not more than two deputy commissioners of labor who shall be under the direction of and responsible to, the commissioner. One of the said deputies shall be especially qualified to supervise the enforcement of laws under the jurisdiction of the board which relate to the health of persons employed in buildings used for industrial purposes and shall be charged with that duty. Further division of powers and duties between the deputy commissioners may be made by the board, which shall also fix their salaries and terms of office with the approval of the governor and council. The board shall have power to remove a deputy commissioner from office at any time by vote of a majority of its members. Acts of 1912, Chapter 726, Section 8, as amended by Acts of 1913, Chapter 813, Section 8, and by Acts of 1915, Chapter 74 (General). Inspectors and Clerical Assistants. The board shall have power to appoint and remove industrial health inspectors, industrial inspectors, assistant industrial inspectors, and necessary clerical assistants, subject to the laws of the commonwealth relating to the appointment and removal of employees in the classified civil service. The total number of industrial health inspectors, industrial inspectors and assistant industrial inspectors shall not exceed twenty-four, of whom at least four shall be women. The state civil service commissioners shall prepare rules, subject to the approval of the governor and council, for including in the classified service all industrial health inspectors, industrial inspectors, assistant industrial inspectors, and clerical assistants. These rules shall provide that candidates for appointments shall pass an examination of a comprehensive and practical character based upon the particular requirements of the kind of work to be done: provided, that persons employed at the time when this act takes effect as inspectors of factories and public buildings in the inspection department of the district police and not retained in said department, as provided in section twelve of this act, shall be transferred without such special examination, and without regard to age, to serve as industrial inspectors. Such transfer shall not affect any rights of retirement with pension that shall have accrued at the date when it is made, or would thereafter accrue to an inspector so transferred, but all such rights shall be retained by any inspector as if he had remained a district police officer. Industrial health inspectors shall be persons admitted to practice medicine in this commonwealth, or persons especially qualified by technical education in matters relating to health and sanitation. Inspectors and assistant inspectors shall be not over forty-five years of age on the date of their first appointment, but this age limit shall not apply to any reappointment, or to the first appointment of any person who filed his application for examination by the civil service commission for such position prior to the first day of January, nineteen hundred and fifteen, and who was not then over forty-five years of age. |