Columbiana Seed Co.

National Labor Relations Board - Board Decisions

Nov 18, 1957

119 N.L.R.B. 560 (N.L.R.B. 1957)

560 DECISIONS OF NATIONAL LABOR RELATIONS BOARD
that objection No. 2 be overruled. We therefore shall adopt his
recommendation in this connection.
Objection No. 3
The Petitioner asserts that the Employer, by conducting an outing
for employees 3 days before the election at which employees were
afforded free entertainment, food, and drink, improperly influenced
the outcome of the election. The Regional Director's investigation
disclosed that this affair constituted the 18th annual outing held by
the Employer for its employees. At the previous outings, the Em-
ployer made available to each employee tickets valued at $1.50 for
the purchase of food and drink. As a result of a request made by an
employees' outing committee on April 12, 1957, some 3 months before
the election, the Employer increased the value of the tickets to $2.50.
The Regional Director concluded that this increase, having been de-
cided upon long before the determination of the date for the second
election, had a possible influence too insignificant, speculative, and
remote to justify setting the election aside. We concur in his con-
clusion and adopt his recommendation that the Petitioner's objection
No. 3 be overruled.
Having overruled the Petitioner's objections to the second election
conducted in this proceeding, we shall certify the results of the
election.
[The Board certified that a majority of the valid ballots was not
cast for Glass Bottle Blowers Association of the United States and
Canada, AFL-CIO, and that the said Union is not the exclusive
representative of the employees in the unit heretofore found
appropriate.]
CHAIRMAN LEEDOM and MEMBER JENKINS took no part in the con-
sideration of the above Supplemental Decision and Certification of
Results of Election.
Columbiana Seed Company and Local Union No. 525, Interna-
tional Brotherhood of Teamsters, Chauffeurs , Warehousemen
and Helpers of America , AFL-CIO, Petitioner. Case No. 14-RC-
3136. November 18,1957
DECISION AND DIRECTION OF ELECTION
Upon a petition duly filed under Section 9 (c) of the National Labor
Relations Act, a hearing was held before Joseph H. Solien, hearing
119 NLRB No. 66.
COLUMBIANA SEED COMPANY 561
,officer. The hearing officer's rulings made at the hearing are free from
prejudicial error and are hereby affirmed.'
Upon the entire record in this case, the Board finds :
1. The Employer is engaged in commerce within the meaning of
the Act.
2. The labor organization involved claims to represent certain
employees of the Employer. .
3. The Employer moves the dismissal of the petition on the ground
that the corn seed-processing employees sought by the Petitioner are
agricultural laborers and are therefore exempt from the Act. Al-
ternatively, the Employer contends that in the event the Board finds
seed-processing work to be nonagricultural labor, the employees per-
forming such duties should nevertheless be regarded as agricultural
laborers under the Clinton Foods decision 2 because they spend the
greater amount of their time on other tasks that are clearly agricul-
tural in nature.
The Employer, a family corporation, rents from various members of
the family, who own 4,000 acres of land, about 1,600 acres for the
purpose of raising seed corn.' In addition, the Employer leases about
10,000 acres of land from farmers who plant seed corn furnished by
the Employer and in turn receive a percentage of the sale price of the
seed corn as well as any rejected seed corn which is known as market
corn. After the corn is harvested, it is taken to seed-processing plants
or buildings, which are also called cribs, located on the family land.
Some of the plants that are in most frequent use have such machinery
as shellers, graders, dryers, and sewing machines to aid employees
in their tasks of shelling, cleaning, grading, packing, and shipping
seed corn. To perform this work, the Employer has 47 employees who
for the most part are year-round employees. As of the time of the
hearing, January 2, 1957, there were also 8 seasonal employees, who
are generally called back from year to year, and 7 temporary employees
who may be rehired by the Employer during the following season.
The record indicates that employees spend varying amounts of
time in seed-processing work and devote the balance of their time to
such jobs as planting, harvesting, feeding livestock, baling hay, stor-
ing corn and other crops, and repairing farm buildings. Thus, Olga
C. Best, the Employer's secretary-treasurer, provided estimates re-
I The Employer does not concede that the Petitioner made a 30-percent showing of in-
terest in support of its petition. The sufficiency of a petitioner's showing of interest is
an administrative matter not subject to litigation. We are administratively satisfied that
the Petitioner's showing of interest is adequate. 0. D. Jennings & Company, 68 NLRB
516.
2 Clinton Foods, Inc., 108 NLRB 85.
3 The remaining 2,400 acres of family land are used by the Company for the cultivation
,of other crops and raising livestock.
476321--58-vol. 119-37
562 DECISIONS OF NATIONAL LABOR RELATIONS BOARD
garding some of the employees. During the course of the year pre-
ceding the hearing, 14 of the regular employees devoted the following
amounts of time to seed-processing tasks : 4 for 1 month, 2 for 2
months, 3 for 4 or 5 months, 1 for 6 months, 3 for 7 or 8 months, and
1 for 11 months. At a later point in her testimony, Best explained
that employees assigned to the seed plants actually were engaged in
seed-processing work for about 60 to 70 percent of their time as they
were also engaged during the same period in clearly agricultural
activities on an intermittent basis. As for the 8 seasonal employees,
Best indicated that during the season of their employment, a period
extending from 4 to 6 months and occasionally longer, they spent most
of their time in the processing plants. Finally, 3 or 4 employees drive
the Employer's trucks from October to mid-May and spend no more
than 3 or 4 months of that time hauling seed corn and other products.
Section 2 (3) of the National Labor Relations Act excludes from its
coverage "any individual employed as an agricultural laborer." The
Board's annual appropriation rider requires the Board to follow the
definition of the term "agricultural" contained in section 3 (f) of the
Fair Labor Standards Act,4 and it is the Board's policy to give great
weight to the interpretation of the section made by the Wage and
Hour Division of the United States Department of Labor.5 In this
connection, the Employer stated at the hearing that the Wage and
Hour Division of the United States Department of Labor, after hear-
ing and examination of the Company's records at the Department's
Springfield, Illinois, office on an unspecified date, gave a "verbal" rul-
ing that all employees other than office employees were exempt from
the Fair Labor Standards Act as agricultural employees. We are now
administratively advised by the Wage and Hour and Public Contracts
Divisions of the United States Department of Labor that the Com-
pany was informed that its processing-plant employees were not agri-
cultural employees within the meaning of section 13 (a) (6) of the
Fair Labor Standards Act, which embodies the definition of agricul-
tural employees contained in section 3 (f) of that Act. We are fur-
ther advised that the Company was told, however, that the employees
involved herein would come within the "area of production" ex-
emption of section 13 (a) (10) of the Fair Labor Standards Act which
exempts certain nonagricultural employees from the requirements of
4 This section defines agriculture as follows :
"Agriculture" includes farming in all its branches and among other things includes the
cultivation and tillage of the soil, dairying, the production, cultivation, growing, and
harvesting of any agricultural or horticultural commodities . . . the raising of live-
stock, bees, fur-bearing animals, or poultry, and any practices . . . performed by a
farmer or on a farm as an incident to or in conjunction with such farming operations,
including preparation for market, delivery to storage or to market or to carriers for
transportation to market.
5 See 0iaa Sugar Company, Limited, 118 NLRB 1442, and cases cited therein.
COLUMBIANA SEED COMPANY 563
the Act.' As we endeavor to follow the interpretation of section 3 (f)
of the Fair Labor Standards Act made by the Wage and Hour
Division of the United States Department of Labor, we find in accord-
ance therewith that the corn seed-processing employees are not agri-
cultural laborers within the meaning of the National Labor Relations
Act.'
There remains the question whether, as contended by the Employer,
the employees involved in the instant case should nevertheless be
deemed agricultural employees because they spend a substantial part
of their time in functions which are clearly agricultural. The Board
recently announced that it would take the same position on this issue
as the Department of Labor with respect to the Fair Labor Standards
Act and accordingly promulgated the rule that employees who perform
any regular amount of nonagricultural work are covered by the Na-
tional Labor Relations Act with regard to that portion of their work
which is nonagricultural.' We find in accordance with this rule that
the employees herein are covered by the National Labor Relations Act
because, as held above, they regularly perform some nonagricultural
work. Therefore, we deny the Employer's motion to dismiss the peti-
tion herein.
4. As noted above, the Petitioner seeks to represent all the em-
ployees in the Employer's corn seed-processing plants near Eldred,
Illinois, including truckdrivers who deliver seed corn, but excluding
office clerical employees, professional employees, guards, agricultural
employees, and supervisors as defined in the Act. As we have al-
ready held that the employees sought by the Petitioner are covered by
the Act with respect to that part of their activities which is nonagricul-
tural in nature, we find that the unit requested by the Petitioner is
appropriate for the purposes of collective bargaining within the mean-
ing of Section 9 (b) of the Act.
[Text of Direction of Election omitted from publication.]
MEMBERS RoDGERS and JENKINS took no part in the consideration of
the above Decision and Direction of Election.
6 This section exempts from wage and hour regulations "any individual employed within
the area of production ( as defined by the Administrator ), engaged in handling, packing,
storing, ginning , compressing , pasteurizing , drying , preparing in their raw or natural state,
or canning of agricultural or horticultural commodities for market. . . .
7In view of this policy , we find that the hearing officer properly rejected as immaterial the
Employer 's offer of proof concerning the rulings of the U. S. Treasury Department and
the Illinois Department of Labor that under the Federal Social Security , the Federal In-
surance Contribution Act, and the Illinois Unemployment Compensation Act, respectively,
all employees of the Employer other than office employees were agricultural laborers. See
Imperial Garden Growers , 91 NLRB 1034 , footnote 8, as to the legislative history of the
Board 's annual appropriation rider.
8 0laa Sugar Company , Limited, supra . See also H . A. Rider & Sons , 117 NLRB 517,
wherein the Board overruled the Clinton Foods decision on which the Employer relies.