671. Definitions. As used in this article: 1. "Farm" includes stock, dairy, poultry, furbearing animal, fruit and truck farms, plantations, orchards, nurseries, greenhouses, or other similar structures, used primarily for the raising of agricultural or horticultural commodities.
2. "Employee" includes any individual employed or permitted to work by an employer on a farm but shall not include: (a) domestic service in the home of the employer; (b) the parent, spouse, child or other member of the employer's immediate family; (c) a minor under seventeen years of age employed as a hand harvest worker on the same farm as his parent or guardian and who is paid on a piece-rate basis at the same piece rate as employees seventeen years of age or over; (d) an individual employed or permitted to work for a federal, state, or a municipal government or political subdivision thereof; or (e) an individual to whom the provisions of article nineteen of this chapter are applicable.
3. "Employer" includes any individual, partnership, association, corporation, cooperative, business trust, legal representative, or any organized group of persons acting as an employer of an individual employed or permitted to work on a farm. If a farm labor contractor recruits or supplies farm workers for work on a farm, such farm workers shall, for the purposes of this article, be deemed to be employees of the owner, lessee or operator of such farm.
4. "Farm labor contractor" includes: a. Any person who, for a fee, recruits, transports, supplies, or hires farm or food processing workers to work for, or under the direction, supervision, or control of, a third person; or
b. Any person who recruits, transports, supplies, or hires farm or food processing workers and who, for a fee, directs, supervises or controls all or any part of the work of such workers. "Fee" includes any money or other valuable consideration paid or promised to be paid to a farm labor contractor for the performance of any of the services enumerated in this definition. The term "farm labor contractor" shall not include an employment agency licensed in accordance with the provisions of article eleven of the general business law.
5. "Wage" includes allowances in the amount determined in accordance with the provisions of this article for meals, lodging, and other items, service and facilities when furnished by the employer to his employees.
6. "Hours worked" means the time that a farm worker is permitted to work in the fields or at his assigned place of work, and shall include time spent on a single farm in going from one field to another, or in waiting for baskets, pick-up, or for similar purposes; provided, however, that time not worked because of weather conditions shall not be considered as hours worked.
7. "Work agreement" means a job service recruitment or placement order; a farm labor contract or migrant labor registration; an agricultural employment contract executed by the employer or its representative with the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico or with the representatives of a foreign government; an agreement voluntarily entered into by the employer and the worker; or any comparable agreement.
Last modified: February 3, 2019