FACTORY INSPECTION LAW.
PASSED MAY 18, 1886; AMENDED MAY 25, 1887; AMENDED JUNE 15, 1889; AMENDED MAY 21, 1890; AMENDED MAY 18, 1892.
CHAPTER 409, LAWS OF 1886 (AS AMENDED BY CHAPTER 673, LAWS OF 1892).
An act to Regulate the Employment of Women and Children in Manufacturing Establishments, and to Provide for the Appointment of Inspectors to Enforce the Same.
The People of the State of New York, represented in Senate and Assembly, do enact as follows:
SECTION I. No person under eighteen years of age, and no woman under twenty-one years or age, employed in any manufacturing establishment, shall be required, permitted, or suffered to work therein more than sixty hours in any one week, or more than ten hours in any one day, unless for the purpose of making a shorter work-day on the last day of the week, nor more hours in any one week than will make an average of ten hours per day for the whole number of days in which such person or such woman shall so work during such week; and in no case shall any person under eighteen years of age, or any woman under twenty-one years of age, work in any such establishment after nine o'clock in the evening or before six o'clock in the morning of any day. Every person, firm, corporation, or company employing any person under eighteen years of age, or any woman under twenty-one years of age, in any manufacturing establishment, shall post and keep posted in a conspicuous place in every room where such help is employed, a printed notice stating the number of hours of labor per day required of such persons for each day of the week, and the number of hours of labor exacted or permitted to be performed by such persons shall not exceed the number of hours of labor so posted as being required. The time of beginning and ending the day's labor shall be the time stated in such notice; provided that such women under twenty-one and persons under eighteen years of age may begin after the time set for beginning, and stop before the time set in such notice for the stopping of the day's labor; but they shall not be permitted or required to perform any labor before the time stated on the notices as the time for beginning the day's labor, nor after the time stated upon the notices as the hour for ending the day's labor. The terms of the notice stating the hours of labor required shall not be changed after the beginning of labor on the first day of the week without the consent of the Factory Inspector, Assistant Factory Inspector, or a Deputy Factory Inspector. When, in order to make a shorter work-day on the last day of the week, women under twenty-one and youths under eighteen years of age are to be required, permitted, or suffered to work more than ten hours in any one day, in a manufacturing establishment, it shall be the duty of the proprietor, agent, foreman, superintendent, or other person employing such persons, to notify the Factory Inspector, Assistant Factory Inspector, or a Deputy Factory Inspector, in charge of the district, in writing, of such intention, stating the number of hours of labor per day which it is proposed to permit or require, and the date upon which the necessity for such lengthened day's labor shall cease, and also again forward such notification when it shall actually have ceased. A record of the amount of over-time so worked, and of the days upon which it was performed, with the names of the employees who were thus required or permitted to work more than ten hours in any one day, shall be kept in the office of the manufacturing establishment, and produced upon the demand of any officer appointed to enforce the provisions of this act.
§ 2. No child under fourteen years of age shall be employed in any manufacturing establishment within this State. It shall be the duty of every person employing children to keep a register, in which shall be recorded the name, birthplace, age and place of residence of every person employed by him under the age of sixteen years; and it shall be unlawful for any proprietor, agent, foreman, or other person in or connected with a manufacturing establishment to hire or employ any child under the age of sixteen years to work therein without there is first provided and placed on file in the orifice an affidavit made by the parent or guardian, stating the age, date, and place of birth of said child; if said child have no parent or guardian, then such affidavit shall be made by the child, which affidavit shall be kept on file by the employer, and which said register and affidavit shall be produced for inspection on demand made by the Inspector, Assistant Inspector, or any of the deputies appointed under this act. There shall be posted conspicuously in every room where children under sixteen years of age are employed, a list of their names with their ages respectively. No child under the age of sixteen years shall be employed in any manufacturing establishment who cannot read and write simple sentences in the English language, except during the vacation of the public schools in the city or town where such minor lives. The Factory Inspector, Assistant Inspector, and Deputy Inspectors shall have power to demand a certificate of physical fitness from some regular physician, in the case of children who may seem physically unable to perform the labor at which they may be employed, and shall have power to prohibit the employment of any minor that cannot obtain such a certificate.
§ 3. No person, firm, or corporation shall employ or permit any child under the age of fifteen years to have the care, custody, management of, or to operate any elevator, or shall employ or permit any person under the age of eighteen years to have the care, custody, management, or operation of any elevator running at a speed of over two hundred feet a minute.