(b) The term "employer" includes agricultural employers. The term "agricultural employer" shall mean any employer engaged in cultivating the soil or in raising or harvesting any agricultural or horticultural commodity including custom harvesting operators, and employers engaged in the business of crops, livestock and livestock products as defined in section three hundred one of the agriculture and markets law, or other similar agricultural enterprises. * NB Effective January 1, 2020 3. * (a) The term "employees" includes but is not restricted to any individual employed by a labor organization; any individual whose employment has ceased as a consequence of, or in connection with, any current labor dispute or because of any unfair labor practice, and who has not obtained any other regular and substantially equivalent employment; and shall not be limited to the employees of a particular employer, unless the article explicitly states otherwise, but shall not include any individual employed by his parent or spouse or in the domestic service of and directly employed, controlled and paid by any person in his home, any individual whose primary responsibility is the care of a minor child or children and/or someone who lives in the home of a person for the purpose of serving as a companion to a sick, convalescing or elderly person or any individuals employed only for the duration of a labor dispute, or any individuals employed as farm laborers or, any individual who participates in and receives rehabilitative or therapeutic services in a charitable non-profit rehabilitation facility or sheltered workshop or any individual employed in a charitable non-profit rehabilitation facility or sheltered workshop who has received rehabilitative or therapeutic services and whose capacity to perform the work for which he is engaged is substantially impaired by physical or mental deficiency or injury. * NB Effective until January 1, 2020 * (a) The term "employees" includes but is not restricted to any individual employed by a labor organization; any individual whose employment has ceased as a consequence of, or in connection with, any current labor dispute or because of any unfair labor practice, and who has not obtained any other regular and substantially equivalent employment; and shall not be limited to the employees of a particular employer, unless the article explicitly states otherwise, but shall not include any individual employed by his parent or spouse or in the domestic service of and directly employed, controlled and paid by any person in his home, any individual whose primary responsibility is the care of a minor child or children and/or someone who lives in the home of a person for the purpose of serving as a companion to a sick, convalescing or elderly person or any individuals employed only for the duration of a labor dispute, or any individual who participates in and receives rehabilitative or therapeutic services in a charitable non-profit rehabilitation facility or sheltered workshop or any individual employed in a charitable non-profit rehabilitation facility or sheltered workshop who has received rehabilitative or therapeutic services and whose capacity to perform the work for which he is engaged is substantially impaired by physical or mental deficiency or injury. * NB Effective January 1, 2020

(b) The term "employee" shall also include a professional musician or a person otherwise engaged in the performing arts who performs services as such. "Engaged in the performing arts" shall mean performing services in connection with production of or performance in any artistic endeavor which requires artistic or technical skill or expertise. * (c) The term "employee" shall also include farm laborers. "Farm laborers" shall mean any individual engaged or permitted by an employer to work on a farm, except the parent, spouse, child, or other member of the employer's immediate family. * NB Effective January 1, 2020 4. The term "representatives" includes a labor organization or an individual whether or not employed by the employer of those whom he represents. 5. The term "labor organization" means any organization which exists and is constituted for the purpose, in whole or in part, of collective bargaining, or of dealing with employers concerning grievances, terms or conditions of employment, or of other mutual aid or protection and which is not a company union as defined herein. 6. The term "company union" means any committee, employee representation plan or association of employees which exists for the purpose, in whole or in part, of dealing with employers concerning grievances or terms and conditions of employment, which the employer has initiated or created or whose initiation or creation he has suggested, participated in or in the formulation of whose governing rules or policies or the conducting of whose management, operations or elections the employer participates in or supervises or which the employer maintains, finances, controls, dominates, or assists in maintaining or financing, whether by compensating anyone for services performed in its behalf or by donating free services, equipment, materials, office or meeting space or anything else of value, or by any other means. 7. The term "unfair labor practice" means only those unfair labor practices listed in section seven hundred four. 8. The term "labor dispute" includes, but is not restricted to, any controversy between employers and employees or their representatives as defined in this section concerning terms, tenure or conditions of employment or concerning the association or representation of persons in negotiating, fixing, maintaining, changing, or seeking to negotiate, fix, maintain or change terms or conditions of employment, or concerning the violation of any of the rights granted or affirmed by this article, regardless of whether the disputants stand in the proximate relation of employer and employee. 9. The term "board" means the public employment relations board created by section two hundred five of the civil service law, in carrying out its functions under this article. 10. The term "policies of this article" means the policies set forth in section seven hundred. 11. The term "non-profitmaking hospital or residential care center" means an organized residential facility for the medical diagnosis, treatment and care of illness, disease, injury, infirmity or deformity, or a residential facility providing nursing care or care of the aged or dependent children, or a facility for the prevention of cruelty to children or animals, which is located anywhere in the state and which is maintained and operated by an association or corporation, no part of the net earnings of which inures to the benefit of any private shareholder or individual. 12. The term "employee of a non-profitmaking hospital or residential care center" means any person employed or permitted to work by or at a non-profitmaking hospital or residential care center but shall not include any person employed or permitted to work: (a) in or for such a non-profitmaking hospital or residential care center, which work is incidental to or in return for charitable aid conferred upon such individual and not under any express contract of hire; or (b) as a volunteer.