About Us

The New York State Industrial Board of Appeals was created by the Legislature in 1975 as an independent review and appeals board charged under the Labor Law with providing an impartial administrative review of the validity or reasonableness of rules, regulations or orders issued by the Commissioner of Labor. The broad review powers of the Board provide the many individuals, businesses and unions in this State who are affected by the Labor Law, with continued exercise of sound and established principles of due process in administrative proceedings.

In addition, pursuant to the Business Corporation Law and the Not-for-Profit Corporation Law, the Board is empowered to review and approve, or disapprove, certificates of incorporation and other corporate documents where the powers and purposes of the corporation include labor related activities or where the proposed corporate name may indicate such a purpose.

Board hearings and other functions are conducted on a statewide basis and the Board maintains offices in Albany and New York City.

The Board's members are each nomiated by the Governor and confirmed by the New York State Senate, and at least one (1) Board member must be an attorney. The Governor also designates one (1) member of the Board to serve as Chairperson. The Chairperson and Deputy Counsel, who is also currently a Board member, are compensated annually, and the other Board members are paid per diem.

Mission

It is the mission of the Industrial Board of Appeals to provide all parties a full and fair opportunity to be heard and to render decisions that are based on the record and are legally correct.

Powers and Duties.

The main statutory duty of the Board is to provide an impartial administrative review of the validity or reasonableness of any rule, regulation or order made by the Commissioner of Labor.

The Board's major review activities include:

• Hearing and adjudicating appeals concerning the reasonableness or validity of health and safety standards promulgated by the Commissioner of Labor for public employee safety.
• Hearing and adjudicating petitions for review of compliance orders issued by the Commissioner of Labor to enforce safety and health standards.
• Hearing and adjudicating appeals from decisions of the Commissioner of Labor on variance requests from safety and health standards.
• Hearing and adjudicating petitions for review of compliance, penalty and interest orders issued by the Commissioner of Labor under the various wage provisions of the Labor Law.
• Hearing and adjudicating appeals concerning the reasonableness or validity of minimum wage orders promulgated by the Commissioner of Labor.
• Approval of certificates of incorporation and other corporate instruments where the powers and purposes of the corporation include labor related activities, or the proposed name may tend to imply involvement in labor related activities.

The Board does NOT have jurisdiction in the areas of unemployment insurance, workers' compensation or public works contracts.

Douglas Rutnik was appointed to serve as Board Chair of the New York State Industrial Board of Appeals in June 2025.

Term expires December 2031

Michael Arcuri was appointed to serve as a Board Member of the New York State Industrial Board of Appeals in 2014. Mr. Arcuri served as Congressman from the New York’s 24th Congressional District from 2007 to 2011, where he served as a member of the Rules Committee, as well as the Transportation and Infrastructure Committee. Prior to serving in Congress, Mr. Arcuri was elected Oneida County District Attorney, and was subsequently re-elected 3 times, becoming the longest serving District Attorney in Oneida County history.  While District Attorney, Mr. Arcuri created the Oneida County drug task force. He also helped to create the Oneida County Child Advocacy Center, the first facility of its kind in New York State; the first drug courts in Oneida County; and victim impact panels. Mr. Arcuri is currently a partner in the law firm Ward Arcuri PLLC, where he focuses his law practice on representing corporations and LLC businesses, labor and employment law, real estate law, and litigation. Since 2000, Mr. Arcuri has also been an adjunct professor at Utica College teaching Constitutional Law in the Criminal Process, Congress in the Legislative Process and Politics, and American Government. He is also a founding member of the Washington, D.C.-based public policy company, Cannae Policy Group. Mr. Arcuri received his law degree from New York Law School and his undergraduate degree from the University at Albany.

Term expired December 2019

Joshua D. Riegel was appointed to serve as a Board Member of the New York State Industrial Board of Appeals in June 2025. In June 2025, Joshua David Riegel was appointed to serve on the New York State Industrial Board of Appeals. Mr. Riegel currently serves as an associate at the commercial litigation firm Katsky Korins LLP, where he has been practicing since August 2021. His work focuses on complex commercial disputes, representing clients in both trial and appellate matters in state and federal courts. Prior to joining Katsky Korins, Mr. Riegel served as Senior Law Clerk to the Honorable Jenny Rivera of the New York State Court of Appeals. He previously clerked for the Honorable Victor A. Bolden of the United States District Court for the District of Connecticut.

Mr. Riegel brings a wealth of experience in labor, employment, civil rights, and fair housing matters. He began his legal career as an Excelsior Service Fellow with the Industrial Board of Appeals and later served as a Marvin M. Karpatkin Fellow at the American Civil Liberties Union—experience that now comes full circle with his appointment to the Board. During law school, he deepened his commitment to social justice through summer clerkships with the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund, Inc., and the New Orleans Workers’ Center for Racial Justice. Mr. Riegel earned his J.D. from New York University School of Law, where he was the Senior Articles Editor of the Law Review. He also holds both bachelor’s and master’s degrees from Sarah Lawrence College.

Term expires December 2031.

Molly Doherty was appointed to the Industrial Board of Appeals in June 2016, and served as its Chairperson from August 2018 to June 2025. She is now the Board's Executive Director. Ms. Doherty has dedicated her career to public service. Prior to joining the Board, she was the Director of Litigation at Manhattan Legal Services, part of Legal Services NYC, the largest civil legal services provider in the United States. In that role she directed the affirmative and complex litigation docket on a range of issues, including employment, civil rights, housing, and consumer matters. She was the Director of the Comprehensive Rights Unit at Manhattan Legal Services prior to that, where she oversaw employment, consumer, re-entry projects, as well as the project serving people living with HIV. Ms. Doherty created the Fair Housing Testing project in the New York State Attorney General’s Civil Rights Bureau, where she developed and managed a housing discrimination testing program that operated throughout New York State. Ms. Doherty began her legal career representing tenants in housing court and other forums at Goddard-Riverside Community Center’s SRO Law Project, where she eventually became the director of the Law Project. Before attending law school, Ms. Doherty worked in a youth advocacy organization in New York City that focused on comprehensive sex education and other issues facing New York City public school students. Ms. Doherty received her law degree from CUNY Law School and her undergraduate degree from CUNY’s Hunter College.

Benjamin Shaw was appointed to serve as Counsel to the New York State Industrial Board of Appeals in January of 2020. His entire legal career has been spent in public service. Prior to joining the Board, he worked in the Administrative Review Division of the Workers’ Compensation Board, litigated and managed cases for the Department of Labor, prosecuted abuse and neglect cases as Counsel to the Commissioner of Social Services in Columbia County and spent 7 years as an Assistant Public Defender in Schenectady County. Through this various employment, Mr. Shaw litigated a wide variety of cases, sat on multiple steering committees to implement drug courts and family treatment courts, provided mandated reporter training and continuing legal education courses, and volunteered with high school mock trial teams. He also has extensive experience drafting statutes and regulations concerning wage and hour law and has conducted outreach with the regulated community. Mr. Shaw received his law degree from Albany Law School and his undergraduate degree from SUNY Geneseo.

Najah A. Farley served as an appointed Board Member of the New York State Industrial Board of Appeals from June 2019 to June 2025, and became the Deputy Counsel for the Board in June 2023. Prior to becoming Deputy Counsel, Ms. Farley was a senior staff attorney at the National Employment Law Project (NELP) for six years. There, she  focused her work on improving work quality through policy advocacy in the areas of wage theft enforcement, retaliation and stopping the usage of noncompete and forced arbitration agreements. Prior to joining NELP, Ms. Farley was an Assistant Attorney General in the Labor Bureau of the New York State Office of the Attorney General. While there, she investigated violations for underpayment of wages and other related violations of New York State Labor Law. Ms. Farley also represented the New York State Department of Labor in its enforcement of state labor laws. Previously, Ms. Farley worked as a trial attorney at the United States Department of Labor in the Philadelphia Regional Solicitor’s office, where she litigated violations of the Mine Safety and Health Act in Pennsylvania, West Virginia and Virginia. Ms. Farley also clerked for Justice S. Bernard Goodwyn of the Supreme Court of Virginia. Ms. Farley received her undergraduate degree in African American Studies from Yale University and her law degree from the University of Virginia School of Law.

Shannan Krasnokutski joined the New York State Industrial Board of Appeals as Associate Counsel in February 2024, after more than 20 years as a civil litigator in both private practice and public service. Most recently, Ms. Krasnokutski represented State agencies and employees as Special Litigation Counsel in the Albany Litigation Bureau of the New York State Attorney General’s office, where she handled some of the State’s most complex, difficult, and sensitive cases. Within the Attorney General’s office, Ms. Krasnokutski served as a Deputy Section Chief and coordinator of the Mental Hygiene group for more than five years. Ms. Krasnokutski also practiced as a litigator for more than a decade as both an associate and a partner with a local Albany firm then known as Nolan & Heller LLP. Ms. Krasnokutski has particular experience in employment litigation and administrative review matters.  Following law school, Ms. Krasnokutski served as a judicial clerk to the Hon. Paul R. Matia and Hon. Kathleen M. O’Malley of the Northern District of Ohio. Ms. Krasnokutski received her law degree from Case Western Reserve University and her undergraduate degree from St. Bonaventure University.

Jane Ipanaque joined the New York State Industrial Board of Appeals in March 2008 and she became the Board’s Executive Assistant in May 2022. Ms. Ipanaque manages the administration of the Board. Prior to her work with the Board, Ms. Ipanaque worked in the Labor Bureau of the New York State Office of the Attorney General, and spent ten years working in various sales and administrative roles in the private sector. Ms. Ipanaque studied computer information systems and business management at Queensborough Community College. She is fluent in written and verbal Spanish.

*During this period, the Chair and Deputy Counsel were compensated annually as full-time state employees and thus their compensation is not included above pursuant to Executive Order 203-b. The other Board members are paid per diem.