If an employer enters into a contract, written or verbal, with an independent contractor to do part of the employer’s work, or if an independent contractor enters into a contract with a subcontractor to do all or any part of the work comprised in the contractor’s contract with the employer, the contract or subcontract does not bar the liability of the employer for injuries to the employees of the contractor or subcontractor, caused by any defect in the condition of the ways, works, machinery or plant, if they are the property of the employer or are furnished by the employer and if the defect arose, or had not been discovered or remedied, through the negligence of the employer or of some person entrusted by the employer with the duty of seeing that they were in proper condition. [PL 1991, c. 885, Pt. A, §8 (NEW); PL 1991, c. 885, Pt. A, §§9-11 (AFF).]