N.Y. Labor Law § 350: Legislative purpose and definitions

§ 350. Legislative purpose and definitions. 1. The employment of women

and minors in industry in the state of New York under conditions

resulting in wages unreasonably low and conditions injurious to their

health and general welfare is a matter of grave and vital public

concern. Any conditions of employment especially fostering such working

conditions are therefore destructive of purposes already accepted as

sound public policy by the legislature of the state and should be

brought into conformity with that policy. Uncontrolled continuance of

homework is such a condition; here wages are notoriously lower and

working conditions endanger the health of the worker; the protection of

factory industries, which must operate in competition therewith and of

the women and minors employed therein and of the public interest of the

community at large in their health and well-being, require strict

control and gradual elimination of industrial homework. In the

considered judgment of the legislature this article is constitutional.

2. Whenever used in this article: a. "Manufacture," "manufacturing,"

"manufactured" or "making" includes preparation, alteration, repair or

finishing, in whole or in part, or handling in any way.

b. "Employer" means any person who either directly or through an

employee, agent, independent contractor, or any other person, delivers

or causes to be delivered to another person, any materials to be

manufactured in a home, and which are thereafter to be returned to him,

not for the personal use of himself or of a member of his family, or to

be delivered, mailed, or shipped to others.

c. "Home" means a room or an apartment in any house.

d. "House" means any building in which one or more persons regularly

sleep, and shall include outbuildings upon premises which include such

building; but where only a person or persons or the family of a person

or persons engaged in the service of the building, sleep in such

building, the term "house" shall apply only to the separate room or

rooms or to the apartment or apartments in which one or more of such

persons sleep.

e. "Industrial homework" means the manufacturing in a home, in whole

or in part, with or of material which has been furnished by an employer,

of any article or articles to be returned to the said employer, or to be

delivered, mailed, or shipped to others.

f. "Industrial homeworker" means any person who manufactures in a

home, in whole or in part, with or out of material furnished by an

employer for industrial homework, any article or articles to be returned

to such employer directly or indirectly, or to be delivered, mailed or

shipped to others.

g. "Person" includes a corporation, a copartnership or a joint stock

association.

h. "Homework contractor or distributor" means any person who for the

account or benefit of an employer delivers to a homeworker or any other

person not engaged by such employer articles or materials to be

manufactured in a home and thereafter to be returned to said person or

otherwise disposed of in accordance with his direction.