2023 Laws of Puerto Rico › TITLE TWENTY-NINE - Labor (§§ 1 — 3004) › PART I - Labor Provisions Generally (§§ 1 — 510k) › Chapter 17 - Industrial Home-Based Work (§§ 371 — 402) › § 373 - Industrial home-based work regulated—Definitions

The following words, terms, and phrases, when used in §§ 371—392 of this title, shall have the meanings ascribed to them in this section, except where the context clearly indicates a different meaning:
(a) Subcontractor.— Any person who, for the account or benefit of an employer, representative contractor, or other person delivers to a [home-based worker] or any other person not engaged by such employer, representative contractor, or other person, articles or materials to be manufactured in a home and thereafter to be returned to said person or otherwise disposed of in accordance with his direction.
(b) Department.— The Department of Labor and Human Resources of Puerto Rico.
(c) Employer.— Any natural or [juridical] person who, for his own account or benefit, directly or indirectly, or through an employee, agent, independent subcontractor, and/or any other person:
(1) Delivers, or causes to be delivered, to another person, any articles or materials to be manufactured in a home and thereafter to be returned to said person (not for the personal use of himself or of a member of his family), or thereafter to be disposed of or distributed in accordance with his directions, or
(2) sells to another person any materials or articles for the purpose of having such articles or materials manufactured in a home and then rebuying such materials or articles after such manufacture, either by himself or by someone designated by him.
(d) Home.— Any room, house, apartment, or other premises, which is chiefly used, in whole or in part, as a dwelling place, and including outbuildings on premises that are primarily used as a dwelling place where such outbuildings are under the control of the person dwelling on such premises.
(e) [Home-based worker].— Any person engaged in manufacturing in a home, articles or materials for an employer, a representative contractor, or a subcontractor.
(f) Industrial [home-based work].— Any manufacture in a home of articles or materials for an employer, a representative contractor, or a subcontractor.
(g) Manufacture.— To prepare, alter, repair, finish, or process, in whole or in part, or handle in any way connected with the production, wrapping, packaging, or preparation for display of an article or material.
(h) Person.— An individual, partnership, firm, association, domestic or foreign corporation, all kinds of cooperative associations, de jure or de facto, whatever their ends or purposes, the legal representatives of a deceased individual, or the receiver, trustee, or successor of an individual, partnership, association, or corporation, or of said cooperatives.
(i) Representative contractor.— Any person who receives from an employer or contractor residing outside this Commonwealth, articles or materials to be distributed by him to any [home-based worker] or other person not engaged by such employer or contractor, to be manufactured in a home and thereafter to be returned, or otherwise disposed of in accordance with his directions.
The singular shall include the plural, and the masculine shall include the feminine and neuter.
History —May 15, 1939, No. 163, p. 812, § 3, eff. 90 days after May 15, 1939.