Section 17A. Deductions on pay-roll schedules may be made from the salary of any state, county or municipal employee of any amount which such employee may specify in writing to any state, county or municipal officer, or the head of the state, county or municipal department, board or commission, by whom or which he is employed, for the payment of union dues to an association of state, county or municipal employees, dues to the Massachusetts State Employees Association, dues to the Massachusetts Nurses Association, or dues payable to any relief association of any municipal department. Any such authorization may be withdrawn by the employee by giving at least sixty days' notice in writing of such withdrawal to the state, county or municipal officer, or the head of the state, county or municipal department, board or commission, by whom or which he is then employed and by filing a copy thereof with the treasurer of the association.

The state treasurer, the common paymaster as defined in section one hundred and thirty-three of chapter one hundred and seventy-five, or the treasurer of the county or municipality by which such employee is employed, shall deduct from the salary of such employee such amount of union dues, dues to the Massachusetts State Employees Association, dues to the Massachusetts Nurses Association, or dues payable to any relief association of any municipal department as may be certified to him on the payroll, and transmit the sum so deducted to the treasurer of said association; provided, that the state treasurer or the county or municipal treasurer, as the case may be, is satisfied by such evidence as he may require that the treasurer of such association has given to said association a bond, in a form approved by the commissioner of revenue, for the faithful performance of his duties, in a sum and with such surety or sureties as are satisfactory to the state treasurer or county or municipal treasurer; and provided, further, that whenever an association or union of state, county, or municipal employees is certified or obtains consent recognition under the provisions of chapter one hundred and fifty E, such deductions shall be made for dues only to the certified or recognized association or union.

This section shall be effective in any county, city or town which has accepted it in the manner provided by section two of chapter seven hundred and forty of the acts of nineteen hundred and fifty, or which accepts it in the following manner:—In a county by vote of the county commissioners; in a city having a Plan D or Plan E charter by majority vote of its city council; in any other city by vote of its city council, approved by the mayor; and in a town by vote of the board of selectmen.