Section 2. When used in this chapter—

''Person'' includes one or more individuals, partnerships, associations, corporations, legal representatives, trustees, trustees in bankruptcy, or receivers.

''Employer'' includes any person acting in the interest of an employer, directly or indirectly, but shall not include the commonwealth or any political subdivision thereof, or any labor organization (other than when acting as an employer), or any one acting in the capacity of officer or agent of such labor organization.

''Employee'' shall include any employee, and shall not be limited to the employees of a particular employer, and shall include any individual whose work has ceased as a consequence of, or in connection with, any current labor dispute, and who has not obtained any other regular and substantially equivalent employment.

''Representative of employees'' means any person or labor organization designated or selected for the purpose of collective bargaining by a majority of the employees in a unit appropriate for such purposes.

''Labor dispute'' includes any controversy concerning rates of pay, wages, hours or terms, tenure or conditions of employment, or concerning 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 employee.

''Essential goods or services'' means food, fuel, water, electric light or power, gas, and hospital or medical services.

''Production'' includes production, manufacture, mining, handling, transporting, or in any other manner working on, and shall also include any process or occupation necessary to such production.

''Distribution'' includes distributing, transporting, handling, storing, selling at wholesale or retail, or furnishing and shall also include any process or occupation necessary to such distribution.