THE LABOR LAWS OF NEW YORK. [INCLUDING ENACTMENTS of 1902.] Consolidation of Bureau of Labor Statistics, Office of Factory Inspector and Board of Arbitration into a Department of Labor. LAWS OF 1901, CHAPTER 9. AN ACT to create a department of labor and the office of commissioner of labor, and abolishing the offices of commissioner of labor statistics and factory inspector, and the state board of mediation and arbitration. Section 1. Department of labor and office of commissioner of labor created. A department of labor and the office of commissioner of labor are hereby created. Within twenty days after this act takes effect, the governor, by and with the advice and consent of the senate, shall appoint a commissioner of labor, who shall hold his office until January first, nineteen hundred and five. A successor to such commissioner shall be appointed in like manner and shall hold his office for a term of four years, beginning on the first day of January of the year in which he is appointed. Such commissioner shall be the head of such department and receive an annual salary of three thousand five hundred dollars. § 2. Offices abolished; powers of commissioners of labor.-The offices of commissioner of labor statistics and factory inspector, and the state board of mediation and arbitration, shall be abolished upon the appointment and qualification of such commissioner of labor. The commissioner of labor shall have the powers conferred and perform the duties imposed by law upon the commissioner of labor statistics and the factory inspector. § 3. Deputy commissioners.-The commissioner of labor shall forthwith upon entering upon the duties of his office appoint and may at pleasure remove, two deputy commissioners of labor to be designated respectively as the first and second deputy commissioners of labor, each of whom shall receive an annual salary of two thousand five hundred dollars. Upon the appointment of such deputies the offices of the assistant factory inspector, deputy commissioner of labor statistics, and chief clerk of the commissioner of labor statistics are abolished. § 4. Bureaus of department.-The department of labor shall be divided by the commissioner of labor into three bureaus as follows: factory inspection, labor statistics and mediation and arbitration. The bureau of factory inspection shall be under the special charge of the first deputy commissioner of labor, who, under the supervision and direction of the commissioner of labor shall have such of the powers conferred, and perform such of the duties imposed, by law upon the factory inspector, as shall be designated by the commissioner of labor. The bureau of labor statistics shall be under the special charge of the second deputy commissioner of labor, who, subject to the supervision and direction of the commissioner of labor shall have such of the powers conferred and perform such of the duties imposed by law upon the commissioner of labor statistics, as shall be designated by the commissioner of labor. The bureau of mediation and arbitration shall be under the special charge and supervision of the commissioner of labor, who, together with the first and second deputy commissioners of labor shall constitute a board, which shall have the powers conferred, and perform the duties imposed, by law on the state board of mediation and arbitration. The powers hereby conferred upon the first and second deputy commissioners shall not include the appointment of officers, clerks or other employees in any of the bureaus of the department of labor. § 5. Officers and employees.-Except as provided by this act, the deputies, officers and employees in the office of or appointed by the factory inspector, the commissioner of labor statistics, and the state board of mediation and arbitration are continued in office until removed pursuant to law. § 6. Construction.-Wherever the terms commissioner of labor statistics, or factory inspector, occur in any law, they shall be deemed to refer to the commissioner of labor, and wherever the term state board of mediation and arbitration occurs in any law, it shall be deemed to refer to the board created by this act. § 7. Pending actions and proceedings. This act shall not affect pending actions or proceedings, civil or criminal, brought by or against the commissioner of labor statistics or factory inspector. All proceedings and matters pending before the state board of mediation and arbitration when this act takes effect shall be continued and completed before the board hereby created; and where a grievance or dispute has been submitted to the state board of mediation and arbitration, prior to the taking effect of this act, the board hereby created may make such further investigation in relation thereto as it deems necessary. § 8. Repeal. All acts and parts of acts inconsistent with this act are hereby repealed. § 9. This act shall take effect immediately. Became a law February 7, 1901, with the approval of the Governor. THE GENERAL LABOR LAW. NOTE. Chapter 415 of the Laws of 1897 (approved May 13, 1897, and in effect June 1, 1897) constitutes Chapter XXXII of the General Laws and is entitled The Labor Law. The following text contains the amendments of subsequent legislatures to and including the session of 1902. Article I. General provisions. (§ § 1-21.) II. Commissioner of labor statistics. (§ § 30-32.) III. Public employment bureaus. (§ § 40-43.) IV. Convict-made goods and duties of commissioner of labor statistics relative thereto. (§ § 50-55.) V. Factory inspector, assistant and deputies. (§ § 60-67.) VI. Factories. (§ § 70-92.) VII. Tenement-made articles. (§§ 100-106.) VIII. Bakery and confectionery establishments. (§§ 110-115.) X. State board of mediation and arbitration. (§§ 140-149.) XII. Examination and registration of horseshoers. (§ § 180-184.) ARTICLE I. General Provisions. Section 1. Short title. 2. Definitions. 3. Hours to constitute a day's work. 4. Violations of the labor law. 5. Hours of labor on street surface and elevated railroads. 6. Hours of labor in brickyards. 7. Regulation of hours of labor on steam surface and elevated railroads. 8. Payment of wages by receivers. 9. Cash payment on wages. 10. When wages are to be paid. 11. Penalty for violation of preceding sections. 12. Assignment of future wages. 13. Preference in employment of persons upon public works. 14. Stone used in state or municipal works. 15. Labels, brands, etc., used by labor organizations. 16. Penalty for illegal use of labels, etc.; injunction proceedings. 17. Seats for female employees. 18. Scaffolding for use of employees. 19. Inspection of scaffolding, ropes, blocks, pulleys and tackles in cities. 20. Protection of persons employed on buildings in cities. 21. Factory inspector to enforce provisions of article. Section 1. Short title.-This chapter shall be known as the labor law. § 2. Definitions.-The term employee, when used in this chapter, means a mechanic, workingman or laborer who works for another for hire. The person, employing any such mechanic, workingman or laborer, whether the owner, proprietor, agent, superintendent, foreman or other subordinate, is designated in this chapter as an employer. The term "factory," when used in this chapter, shall be construed to include also any mill, workshop or other manufacturing or business establishment where one or more persons are employed at labor. The term "mercantile establishment," when used in this chapter, means any place where goods, wares or merchandise are offered for sale. Whenever, in this chapter, authority is conferred upon the factory inspector, it shall also be deemed to include his assistant or a deputy acting under his direction. § 3. Hours to constitute a day's work.-Eight hours shall constitute a legal day's work for all classes of employees in this state except those engaged in farm and domestic service unless otherwise provided by law. This section does not prevent an agreement for overwork at an increased compensation except upon work by or for the state or a municipal corporation or by contractors or sub-contractors therewith. Each contract to which the state or a municipal corporation is a party which may involve the employment of laborers, workmen or mechanics shall contain a stipulation that no laborer, workman or mechanic in the employ of the contractor, sub-contractor or other person doing or contracting to do the whole or a part of the work contemplated by the contract shall be permitted or required to work more than eight hours in any one calendar day, except in cases of extraordinary emergency caused by fire, flood or danger to life or property. The wages to be paid for a legal day's work as herein before defined to all classes of such laborers, workmen or mechanics upon all such public work or upon any material to be used upon or in connection therewith shall not be less than the prevailing rate for a day's work in the same trade or occupation in the locality within the state where such public work on, about or in connection with which such labor is performed in its final or completed form is to be situated, erected or used. Each such contract hereafter made shall contain a stipulation that each such laborer, workman or mechanic employed by such contractor, sub-contractor or other person on, about or upon such public work, shall receive such wages herein provided for. Each contract for such public work hereafter made shall contain a provision that the same shall be void and of no effect unless the person or corporation making or performing the same shall comply with the provisions of this section; and no such person or corporation shall be entitled to receive any sum nor shall any officer, agent or employee of the state or of a municipal corporation pay the same or authorize its payment from the funds under his charge or control to any such person or corporation for work done upon any contract which in its form or manner of performance violates the provisions of this section, but nothing in this section shall be construed to apply to persons regularly employed in state institutions, or to engineers, electricians and elevatormen in the department of public buildings during the annual session of the legislature. [As amended by L. 1899, ch. 567 and L. 1900, ch. 298.]* § 4. Violations of the labor law.-Any officer, agent or employee of this state or of a municipal corporation therein having a duty to act in the The prevailing rate of wages clause in this section was declared unconstitutional by the Court of Appeals, February 26, 1901-People ex rel. Rodgers vs. Coler, 166 N. Y., 1. |