ACTS OF 1905. CHAPTER 32.-Protection of employees on street railways-Inclosed platforms. Vestibules to SECTION 1. On and after the first day of December in the year nineteen hundred and five, all street cars in regular use for the be provided. transportation of passengers in December, January, February and March in each year, except as provided in the following section, shall have their platforms inclosed in such manner as to protect the motormen, conductors or other employees who operate such cars from exposure to wind and weather in such manner as the board of railroad commissioners shall approve. A p plication SEC. 2. Such street cars shall include all regular street cars which are operated by steam, electricity or other motive power, of law. which, while in motion, require the constant care or service of an employee upon the platforms of the car or upon one of them. This act shall not apply to special cars or cars used for temporary service in an emergency. SEC. 3. A street railway company which fails or neglects to comply with the provisions of the two preceding sections shall be punished by a fine of not more than one hundred dollars for each day during which such neglect continues, and a superintendent or manager of such street railway who causes or permits such violation shall be jointly and severally liable with said railway to said fine. Violations. Exemptions, SEC. 4. Any street railway company operating cars may, on or before the first day of September in the year nineteen hundred and when. five, petition the board of railroad commissioners to be exempted from the provisions of this act so far as relates to such lines or routes owned or controlled by said company, where said company claims cars can not be operated with safety; and if after hearing and investigation said board decides that in its opinion street cars with the platform inclosed, as required by section one of this act, can not be operated with safety in such city, upon any or all of its lines or routes, this act shall not be applicable to said company, its officers or cars, so far as relates to such lines or routes so decided to be unsafe for such operation. Said board shall render its decision on all petitions brought under this section, with the reason for such decision, on or before the first day of December in the year nineteen hundred and five, but said decision shall be at any time subject to revision by said board. If, however, said board shall decide adversely to the claim of said company in regard to any lines or routes included in said petition, then said petitioning railway company shall inclose the platforms of its cars operated on such lines or routes, in the manner provided in section one, within such time as said board of railroad commissioners shall deem reasonably requisite. CHAPTER 71.—Licensing of plumbers. Licenses re SECTION 1. In water districts and in cities and towns which own and control municipal waterworks, either by direct ownership of quired. the plant or by ownership of the majority of the stock thereof, no plumbing shall hereafter be done on any pipes or fixtures for the use of water from such waterworks, unless done by a plumber or other person licensed by the water board of such district or the board of water commissioners of such cities or the municipal officers of such towns. Said water boards and municipal officers are hereby authorized to grant and revoke licenses. SEC. 4. If any plumber or person not duly licensed shall set up any pipes or fixtures for the use of water from any waterworks designated in section one of this act, or make any repairs upon, additions to, or alterations of, any pipes or fixtures previously thereto set up, he shall forfeit and pay a sum of not less than five Violations. Men dicant, nor more than twenty dollars, to be recovered by complaint, or in an action of debt in the name of the treasurer of the water district or the city or town in which such work is done, before the municipal court of such city or a trial justice in such town. CHAPTER 123.-Employment of children-Certain employments forbidden. SECTION 9. No person shall employ or cause to be employed, eximmoral, etc., hibit, use or have in custody, or train for use, employment or exhioccupations. bition, any child under sixteen years of age, and no parent, guardian or other person, having care, custody and control of such child, shall procure or permit the training, use, employment or exhibition of any such child, in begging or soliciting or receiving alms in any manner or under any pretence, or in any illegal, indecent or immoral exhibition or practice, or in any exhibition of any such child when insane or idiotic, or when possessing any deformity and unnatural physical formation, or in any practice, exhibition or place dangerous or injurious to the life, limb, health or morals of such child. Whoever offends against the provisions of this section shall be punished by a fine not exceeding one hundred dollars or by imprisonment not exceeding sixty days. ACTS OF 1907. CHAPTER 4.-Employment of children on elevators. SECTION 1. No person, firm or corporation shall employ or permit any person under fifteen years of age to have the care, custody, management or operation of any elevator, or shall employ a person under eighteen years of age to have the care, custody, management or operation of any elevator running at a speed of over two hundred feet a minute. SEC. 2. Whoever violates the provisions of this act shall be punished by a fine not exceeding one hundred dollars and not less than twenty-five dollars for each offense. CHAPTER 84.-Employment agencies. SECTION 1. No person shall open, keep or carry on any employment agency unless he shall first procure from the municipal officers of the city or town where said agency is to be located a license for the same, which license shall be issued by the municipal officers upon the payment of twenty dollars for the use of said city or town. Such license shall be signed by one or more of the municipal officers and shall be issued for the term of one year from its date and shall apply only to the person to whom it is issued. SEC. 2. Every person applying for a license as provided in the preceding section shall file with said municipal officers a bond in favor of the inhabitants of the city or town wherein such application is made in the sum of five hundred dollars, with surety approved by the municipal officers, conditioned that the obligor shall not violate any of the provisions of this act. The municipal officers are hereby given authority, after such notice and hearing as they may deem necessary, to revoke the license of any person, when, in their judgment, said licensed person has violated any of the provisions of this act. The decision of the municipal officers shall be final. SEC. 3. Every licensed person shall give to each applicant for employment from whom a fee or other valuable thing shall be received for procuring such employment, which fee or other valuable thing shall in no case exceed the value of one dollar, said fee being in full compensation for all services of said licensed person, a receipt in which shall be stated the name of the applicant, the amount of the fee or other valuable thing, the date, the name or Fees return nature of the employment or situation to be procured and a sepa- Said employment agency shall exhibit in a public and conspicuous place in his place or office the license which he has obtained from the municipal officers of the city or town wherein said agency is established. SEC. 4. The term "person" in this act shall include persons, company, society, association, firm or corporation and the term “employment agency" shall include the business of keeping the intelligence office, employment bureaus or other agencies by procuring work or employment for persons seeking employment, or for acting as agent for procuring such work or employment where a fee or other valuable thing is exacted, charged or received, or for procuring or assisting to procure employment, work or a situation of any kind or for procuring or providing hereby for any person. SEC. 5. This act shall not apply to the employment of seamen. SEC. 7. Whoever violates any of the provisions of this act shall be fined not less than ten or more than one hundred dollars to be recovered by complaint or indictment for the use of the State. MARYLAND. PUBLIC GENERAL LAWS-CODE OF 1903. ARTICLE 7.-Arbitration of labor disputes. Definitions. Seamen. SECTION 1. Whenever any controversy shall arise between any Board of corporation incorporated by this State in which this State may be public works may investiinterested as a stockholder or creditor, and any persons in the gate controveremployment or service of such corporation, which, in the opinion sies. of the board of public works, shall tend to impair the usefulness or prosperity of such corporation, the said board of public works shall have power to demand and receive a statement of the grounds of said controversy from the parties to the same; and if, in their judgment, there shall be occasion so to do, they shall have the right to propose to the parties to said controversy, or to any of them, that the same shall be settled by arbitration; and if the opposing parties to said controversy shall consent and agree to said arbitration, it shall be the duty of the said board of public works to provide in due form for the submission of the said controversy to arbitration, in such manner that the same may be finally settled and determined; but if the said corporation, or the said person in its employment or service, so engaged in controversy with the said corporation, shall refuse to submit to such arbitration, it shall be the duty of the said board of public works to examine into and ascertain the cause of said controversy, and to report the same to the next general assembly. SEC. 2. All subjects of dispute arising between corporations, and any person in their employment or service, and all subjects of dispute between employers and employees in any trade or manufacture, may be settled and adjusted in the manner hereafter mentioned. Scope of act. Either party SEC. 3. Whenever such subjects of dispute shall arise as aforemay demand said, it shall be lawful for either party to the same to demand and arbitration. have an arbitration or reference thereof in manner following, that Procedure. is to say, where the party complaining and the party complained Mutual agreement. Third parties may act. Determina Award. of shall come before, or agree by any writing under their hands, to abide by the determination of any judge or justice of the peace, it shall and may be lawful for such judge or justice of the peace to hear and finally determine in a summary manner the matter in dispute between such parties; but if such parties shall not come before, or so agree to abide by the determination of such judge or justice of the peace, but shall agree to submit their said cause of dispute to arbitrators, appointed under the provisions of this article, then it shall be lawful for any such judge or justice of the peace, and such judge or justice of the peace is hereby required, on complaint made before him, and proof that such agreement for arbitration had been entered into, to appoint arbitrators for settling the matters in dispute; and such judge or justice of the peace shall then and there propose not less than two nor more than four persons, one-half of whom shall be employers and the other half employees, acceptable to the parties to the dispute, respectively, who, together with said judge or justice of the peace, shall have full power finally to hear and determine such dispute. SEC. 4. In all such cases of dispute as aforesaid, as in all other cases, if the parties mutually agree that the matter in dispute shall be arbitrated and determined in a mode different from the one hereby prescribed, such agreement shall be valid, and the award and determination thereon by either mode of arbitration shall be final and conclusive between the parties. SEC. 5. It shall be lawful in all cases for any employer or employee, by writing under his hand, to authorize any person to act for him in submitting to arbitration and attending the same. SEC. 6. Every determination of dispute by any judge or justice tion of dispute. of the peace shall be given as a judgment of the court over which said judge presides, and of the justice of the peace determining the same; and the said judge or justice of the peace shall award execution thereon as upon verdict, confession or nonsuit; and every award made by arbitrators appointed by any judge or justice of the peace under the provisions of this article, shall be returned by said arbitrators to the judge or justice of the peace by whom they were appointed; and said judge or justice of the peace shall enter the same as an amicable action between the parties to the same in the court presided over by said judge or justice of the peace, with the same effect as if said action had been regularly commenced in said court by due process of law, and shall thereupon become a judgment of said court, and execution thereon shall be awarded as upon verdict, confession or nonsuit; and in all proceedings under this article, whether before a judge or justice of the peace, or arbitrators, costs shall [be] taxed as are now allowed by law in similar proceedings, and the same shall be paid equally by the parties to the dispute; such award shall remain four days in court during its sitting, after the return thereof, before any judgment shall be entered thereon; and if it shall appear to the court within that time that the same was obtained by fraud or malpractice in or by surprise, imposition or deception of the arbitrators, or without due notice to the parties or their attorneys, the court may set aside such award and refuse to give judgment thereon. Assignments to be acknowledged. ARTICLE 8.-Assignment of wages. SECTION 11 (added by chapter 399, Acts of 1906). No assignment of wages or salary shall be valid so as to vest in the assignee any beneficial interest, either at law or in equity, unless such assignment be in writing, signed by the assignor and acknowledged in person by him or her before a justice of the peace in and for the city or county, as the case may be, in which the assignor resides, and entered on the same day by said justice of the peace upon his docket; and unless further, within three days from the execution and acknowledgment of said assignment a true and complete copy thereof, together with the certificates of its acknowledgment, be served upon the person, firm or corporation by whom said wages or salary are due or to become due, in the same manner that the summons in chancery is now required by law to be served: Provided, however, That no assignment of wages or salary by a married person shall be valid unless the same is also executed and acknowledged as above by the assignor's wife or husband, as the case may be. SEC. 12 (added by chapter 399, Acts of 1906). Proof of said service, as provided for in the preceding section, shall be by an admission thereof in writing by the person, firm or corporation, his, their or its agent on the original assignment, which admission of service shall also be entered by said justice of the peace upon his docket within two days thereafter. SEC. 13 (added by chapter 399, Acts of 1906). In addition to said acknowledgment to be made by said assignor, he or she, as the case may be, shall make affidavit that he or she has not paid, and will not, directly or indirectly, pay more than the legal rate of six per centum per annum on any sum borrowed, or permit a deduction from said sum so loaned to him or her at the time of said loan, or any time thereafter, of more than a sum equivalent to six per centum per annum for the time said loan is made. SEC. 14 (added by chapter 399, Acts of 1906). The term "assignment" as used in this act, shall include every assignment, transfer, sale, pledge, mortgage or hypothecation, however made or attempted, of the wages or salary of any person, or of any interest therein. Usurious con SEC. 15 (added by chapter 399, Acts of 1906). Whenever any assignment of the wages or salary of any person or persons shall be tracts. given as security for a loan tainted with usury, or shall be given to secure the payment or fulfillment of a usurious contract or the payment of the principal or interest of a usurious debt, such assignment shall be absolutely void. SEC. 16 (added by chapter 399, Acts of 1906). Every assignment of wages to be earned in whole or in part more than six (6) months from and after the making of such assignment, shall be absolutely void. Term lim ited. What suits enjoinable. SEC. 17 (added by chapter 399, Acts of 1906). Whenever any person, firm or corporation shall bring, or threaten to bring any action or suit to enforce any assignment of wages or salary which has not been duly executed, acknowledged, sworn to and served upon the employer in conformity with the provisions of this act, or which is declared invalid by the provisions of this act, courts of equity shall have full power, upon the application either of the assignor of such wages or salary, or of the person, firm or corporation from whom such wages or salary is, or is to become due, to perpetually enjoin the threatened or attempted enforcement of any such assignment; and the fact that the complainant has a complete and adequate remedy at law shall constitute no defense to the maintenance of a suit in equity for the purpose aforesaid. SEC. 18 (added by chapter 399, Acts of 1906). The invalidity of How any portion of this act shall not affect the validity of any other portion thereof which can be given effect without such invalid part. ARTICLE 9.-Exemption of wages from attachment. SECTION 33. No attachments of the wages or hire of any laborer or employee, in the hands of the employer, whether private individuals or bodies corporate, shall affect any salary or wages of the debtor which are not actually due at the date of the attachment; and the sum of one hundred dollars of such wages or hire due to any laborer or employee by any employer or corporation, shall always be exempt from attachment by any process what ever. strued. con One hundred dollars exempt. |