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.