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April 28, 2024 Clouds | 56°F
The 193rd General Court of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts

Section 22A: Professional strikebreakers; obstruction of picketing

Section 22A. No person shall knowingly employ any professional strikebreaker in the place of an employee involved in a lockout or lawful strike. No professional strikebreaker shall take or offer to take the place in employment of an employee who is involved in a lockout or lawful strike. A ''professional strikebreaker'' is defined as a person who regularly and habitually earns a major portion of his livelihood by entering into employment where a lockout or strike exists to take the place of an employee whose work has ceased as a direct consequence of such lockout or strike.

No person shall engage in any activities or employ any person for the purpose of obstructing or interfering by force or threats with (1) peaceful picketing by employees during any labor controversy affecting wages, hours or conditions of labor, or (2) the exercise by employees of any of the rights granted employees under the provisions of chapter one hundred and fifty A or of the federal Labor-Management Relations Act of 1947.

This section shall not apply to the employment of any person whose services are necessary to ensure that the plant or other property of the employer involved in the strike or lockout is properly maintained and protected for the resumption at any time of normal operations.

Whoever violates any provisions of this section shall be punished by a fine of not more than two thousand dollars.