NY Const, art I, § 17 · Article I. Bill of Rights
Labor not a commodity; hours and wages in public work; right to organize and bargain collectively
Text — Law content up to date as of June 5, 2026, as published by the New York State Senate (Open Legislation)
§ 17. Labor of human beings is not a commodity nor an article of commerce and shall never be so considered or construed.
No laborer, worker or mechanic, in the employ of a contractor or sub-contractor engaged in the performance of any public work, shall be permitted to work more than eight hours in any day or more than five days in any week, except in cases of extraordinary emergency; nor shall he or she be paid less than the rate of wages prevailing in the same trade or occupation in the locality within the state where such public work is to be situated, erected or used.
Employees shall have the right to organize and to bargain collectively through representatives of their own choosing.
Source of truth
- Edition
- Law content up to date as of June 5, 2026, as published by the New York State Senate (Open Legislation)
- Official file
- https://legislation.nysenate.gov/pdf/laws/CNSA1S17
- Text hash
- sha256 78dab35f43c56793a7223a4820050cc284db531bf4787fe7a63293dc55dd77f2
- Composed by
- gen_ny_statutes.py 2026-11-10: the Senate's Open Legislation law tree (GET /api/3/laws/<ID>?full=true) read in document order; the Senate's PDF of the whole law (GET /pdf/laws/<ID>?full=true), read with PDFium, prints the same words in the same order
Procedural information only. Not legal advice and not a substitute for the advice of an attorney. Confirm the current text with the official publisher before relying on it.