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 V. Factory inspector, assistant and deputies. (§ § 60-67.) 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. 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. 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 hereinbefore 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. premises, who violates, evades or knowingly permits the violation or evasion of any of the provisions of this act shall be guilty of malfeasance in office and shall be suspended or removed by the authority having power to appoint or remove such officer, agent or employee, otherwise by the governor. Any citizen of this state may maintain proceedings for the suspension or removal of such officer, agent or employee or may maintain an action for the purpose of securing the cancellation or avoidance of any contract which, by its terms or manner of performance, violates this act, or for the purpose of preventing any officer, agent or employee of such municipal corporation from paying or authorizing the payment of any public money for work done thereupon. [As amended by L. 1899, ch. 567.] § 5. Hours of labor on street surface and elevated railroads.-Ten consecutive hours' labor, including one-half hour for dinner, shall constitute a day's labor in the operation of all street surface and elevated railroads, of whatever motive power, owned or operated by corporations in this state, whose main line of travel, or whose routes lie principally within the corporate limits of cities of more than one hundred thousand inhabitants. No employee of any such corporation shall be permitted or allowed to work more than ten consecutive hours, including one-half hour for dinner, in any one day of twenty-four hours. In cases of accident or unavoidable delay, extra labor may be performed for extra compensation. § 6. Hours of labor in brickyards.-Ten hours, exclusive of the necessary time for meals, shall contitute a legal day's work in the making of brick in brickyards owned or operated by corporations. No corporation owning or operating such brickyards shall require employees to work more than ten hours in any one day, or to commerce work before seven o'clock in the morning. But overwork and work prior to seven o'clock in the morning for extra compensation may be performed by agreement between employer and employee. § 7. Regulation of hours of labor on steam surface and elevated railroads.—Ten hours' labor, performed within twelve consecutive hours, shall constitute a legal day's labor in the operation of steam surface and elevated railroads owned and operated within this state, except where the mileage system of running trains is in operation. But this section does not apply to the performance of extra hours of labor by conductors, engineers, firemen and trainmen in case of accident or delay resulting therefrom. For each hour of labor performed in any one day in excess of such ten hours, by any such employee, he shall be paid in addition at least one-tenth of his daily compensation. No person or corporation operating a line of railroad of thirty miles in length or over, in whole or in part within this state, shall permit or require a conductor, engineer, fireman or trainman, who has worked in any capacity for twenty-four consecutive hours, to go again on duty or perform any kind of work, until he has had at least eight hours' rest. § 8. Payment of wages by receivers. Upon the appointment of a receiver of a partnership or of a corporation organized under the laws of this state and doing business therein, other than a moneyed corporation, the wages of the employees of such partnership or corporation shall be preferred to every other debt or claim. § 9. Cash payment of wages.-Every manufacturing, mining, quarry ing, mercantile, railroad, street railway, canal, steamboat, telegraph and telephone company, every express company, and every water company, not municipal, shall pay to each employee engaged in its business the wages earned by him in cash. No such company or corporation shall pay its employees in script, commonly known as store money orders. § 10. When wages are to be paid.-Every corporation or joint-stock association, or person carrying on the business thereof by lease or otherwise, shall pay weekly to each employee the wages earned by him to a day not more than six days prior to the date of such payment. But every person or corporation operating a steam surface railroad shall, on or before the twentieth day of each month, pay the employees thereof the wages earned by them during the preceding calendar month. § 11. Penalty for violation of preceding sections. If a corporation or joint-stock association, its lessee or other person carrying on the business thereof, shall fail to pay the wages of an employee, as provided in this article, it shall forfeit to the people of the state the sum of fifty dollars for each such failure, to be recovered by the factory inspector in his name of office in a civil action; but an action shall not be maintained therefor, unless the factory inspector shall have given to the employer at least ten days' written notice, that such an action will be brought if the wages due are not sooner paid as provided in this article. On the trial of such action, such corporation or association shall not be allowed to set up any defense, other than a valid assignment of such wages, a valid set-off against the same, or the absence of such employee from his regular place of labor at the time of the payment, or an actual tender to such employee at the time of the payment of the wages so earned by him, or a breach of contract by such employee or a denial of the employment. § 12. Assignment of future wages.-No assignment of future wages, payable weekly, or monthly in case of a steam surface railroad corporation, shall be valid if made to the corporation or association from which such wages are to become due, or to any person on its behalf, or if made or procured to be made to any person for the purpose of relieving such corporation or association from the obligation to pay weekly, or monthly in case of a steam surface railroad corporation. Charges for groceries, provisions or clothing shall not be a valid offset for wages in behalf of any such corporation or association. No such corporation or association shall require any agreement from an employee to accept wages at other periods than as provided in this article as a condition of employment. § 13. Preference in employment of persons upon public works.-In the construction of public works by the state or a municipality, or by persons contracting with the state or such municipality, only citizens of the United States shall be employed; and in all cases where laborers are employed on any such public works, preference shall be given citizens of the state of New York. In each contract for the construction of public works a provision shall be inserted, to the effect that if the provisions of this section are not complied with, the contract shall be void. On and after May first, nineteen hundred and two, all boards, officers, agents or employees of cities of the first class of the state, having the power to enter into contracts which provide for the expenditure of public money on public works shall file in the office of the commissioner of labor the names and addresses of all contractors holding contracts with said cities of the state. Upon the letting of new contracts the names and addresses of such new contractors shall likewise be filed. Upon the demand of the commissioner of labor a contractor shall furnish a list of the names and addresses of all sub-contractors in his employ. Each contractor performing work for any city of the first class, shall keep a list of his employees, in which it shall be set forth whether they are naturalized or native born citizens of the United States, together with, in case of naturalization, the date of naturalization and the name of the court where such naturalization was granted. Such lists and records shall be open to the inspection of the commissioner of labor. A violation of this section shall constitute a misdemeanor and shall be punishable by a fine of not less than fifty dollars nor more than five hundred dollars, or by imprisonment for not less than thirty nor more than ninety days, or by both such fine and imprisonment. [As amended by L. 1902, ch. 454.]* § 14. Stone used in state or municipal works.—All stone used in state and municipal works, except paving blocks and crushed stone, shall be worked, dressed and carved within the state. There shall be inserted in each contract or specification hereafter awarded by state, county or municipal authorities, authorizing or requiring the use of worked, dressed or carved stone, except paving blocks or crushed stone, within the state or such county or municipality, a clause to the effect that such stone shall be so worked, dressed or carved within the boundaries of the state as required by this section. If a contractor of the state or any municipality therein shall use stone, except paving blocks and crushed stone, which has been worked, dressed or carved without the state, the state or such municipality shall revoke the contract of such contractor and be released from liability thereon. § 15 Labels, brands, et cetera, used by labor organizations.-A union or association of employees may adopt a device in the form of a label, brand, mark, name or other character for the purpose of designating the products of the labor of the members thereof. Duplicate copies of such device shall be filed in the office of the secretary of state, who shall, under his hand and seal, deliver to the union or association filing or registering the same a certified copy and a certificate of the filing thereof, for which he shall be entitled to a fee of one dollar. Such certificate shall not be assignable by the union or association to whom it is issued. § 16. Penalty for illegal use of labels, et cetera; injunction proceedings. A person manufacturing, using, displaying or keeping for sale a counterfeit or colorable imitation of a device so adopted and filed, or goods bearing the same, or who shall use or display a genuine device, so adopted and filed, without authority from or in a manner not authorized by the owner thereof, shall be subject to a penalty of two hundred dollars, to be *The preference clause of this section, so far as it concerns persons employed by municipal contractors, was held unconstitutional in 1895 by the General Term of the Supreme Court, Buffalo.-People vs. Warren, 13 Misc., 618. So far as this section relates to municipal works, it was held unconstitutional March 8, 1901, by the Court of Appeals in the case of People ex rel. Treat vs. Coler.-166 N. Y., |