(a) The term “department” shall mean the Department of Labor and Industry.

(b) The term “person” includes an individual, partnership, association, corporation, legal representative, trustee, trustee in bankruptcy, receiver, or labor organization.

(c) The term “employer” includes any person acting, directly or indirectly, in the interest of an employer, but shall not include the United States or the Commonwealth, or any political subdivision thereof, or any municipal authority, or any person subject to the Federal Railway Labor Act¹ or any labor organization (other than when acting as an employer), or anyone acting in the capacity of officer or agent of such labor organization.

(d) The term “employe” shall include any employe, and shall not be limited to the employes of a particular employer, unless the act explicitly states otherwise, and shall include any individual whose work has ceased as a consequence of, or in connection with, any current labor dispute, or because of any unfair labor practice, and who has not obtained any other regular and substantially equivalent employment, but shall not include any individual employed as an agricultural laborer, or in the domestic service of any person in the home of such person, or any individual employed by his parent or spouse.

(e) The term “representative” includes any individual or labor organization.

(f) The term “labor organization” means any organization of any kind, or any agency or employe representation committee or plan in which employes participate, and which exists for the purpose, in whole or in part, of dealing with employers concerning grievances, labor disputes, wages, rates of pay, hours of employment, or conditions of work, but shall not include any labor organization which, by ritualistic practice, constitutional or by-law proscription, by tacit agreement among its members, or otherwise, denies a person or persons membership in its organization on account of race, creed, color, or political affiliation.

(g) The term “unfair labor practice” means only these unfair labor practices listed in section six of this act.²

(h) The term “labor dispute” includes any controversy concerning--(1) terms, tenure or conditions of employment; or concerning (2) the association or representation of persons in negotiating, fixing, maintaining, changing or seeking to arrange terms or conditions of employment, regardless of whether the disputants stand in the proximate relation of employer and employe.

(i) The term “Board” means the Pennsylvania Labor Relations Board created by section four of this act.³

(j) The singular shall include the plural, and the masculine shall include the feminine and neuter.