Holtville Alfalfa Mills, Inc.

National Labor Relations Board - Board Decisions

Apr 14, 1952

98 N.L.R.B. 1183 (N.L.R.B. 1952)

HOLTVILLE ALFALFA MILLS, INC. 1183
HOLTVILLE ALFALFA MILLS, INC. and TRUCK DRIVERS, WAREHOUSEMEN
AND HELPERS LOCAL 898, INTERNATIONAL BROTHERHOOD OF TEAM-
STERS , CHAUFFEURS, WAREHOUSEMEN AND HELPERS OF AMERICA,
A. F. OF L., PETITIONER. Case No. 21-RC-2126. April 14, 1952
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 George A. Yager, hearing
officer.' The hearing officer's rulings made at the hearing are free
from prejudicial error and are hereby affirmed.
Pursuant to the provisions of Section 3 (b) of the Act, the Board
has delegated its powers in connection with this case to a three-
member panel [Chairman Herzog and Members Houston and Styles].
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. A question affecting commerce exists concerning the represen-
tation of employees of the Employer within the meaning of Section
9 (c) (1) and Section 2 (6) and (7) of the Act.
4. The Employer and the Petitioner agree that employees working
at the Employer's alfalfa mill near Holtville, California, including
mill operators, pellet machine operators, sackers, mechanics, and their
helpers, but excluding office and clerical employees, watchmen, guards,
and supervisors, constitute an appropriate unit for bargaining pur-
poses. The Petitioner would include in the unit mowers, rakers,
choppers, truck drivers, and maintenance men, otherwise known in
the record as fieldmen. The Employer would exclude fieldmen on
the ground that they are employed as agricultural laborers within
the meaning of Section 2 (3) of the Act'
The Employer is engaged in processing green alfalfa into alfalfa
meal and pellets at its mill near Holtville, California. The Employer
buys growing crops from farmers. The so-called fieldmen report for
work at the Employer's mill and are carried out in the Employer's
ttucks to the alfalfa fields, which lie approximately one-quarter to
12 miles from the mill. Mowers, rakers, and choppers operate
machines which respectively mow, rake, and pick up and chop alfalfa
in the fields, blowing it into trucks standing by. Truck drivers, who
' The Employer 's name appears herein as amended at the hearing.
2 As in previous years, a rider to the Board 's current appropriation act (Public Law 134,
82d Cong , 1st Sess , August 31, 1951) requires the Board to define agriculture as defined
in section 3 (f) of the Fair Labor Standards Act for the purpose of determining who are
"agricultural laborers" within the meaning of Section 2 (3).
98 NLRB No. 153.
1184 DECISIONS OF NATIONAL LABOR RELATIONS BOARD
gas and oil their trucks at the mill, drive their trucks alongside the
chopping machines in the field until their trucks are filled. They
then haul the chopped alfalfa to the mill for further processing, place
their full trucks in position to be emptied, and drive other empty
trucks back into the fields as soon as empty trucks are available.
Field maintenance men repair field equipment in the fields, spending
approximately 90 percent of their time in this work.8
Section 3 (f) of the Fair Labor Standards Act, to which the Board
is required to refer for the definition of agriculture ,4 defines the term
as follows :
(f) "Agriculture" includes farming in all its branches and
among other things includes the . . . harvesting of any agricul-
tural or horticultural commodities . . . and any practice .. ,
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 market or to carriers for trans-
portation to market.
It is apparent that mowers, rakers, and choppers, who in a single
operation pick up and chop alfalfa in the fields, are engaged in the
farming operation of harvesting alfalfa on farms .5 Field mainte-
nance men, because they repair agricultural machines on farms, are
engaged in work incidental to farming operations e Accordingly,
these fieldmen, as such, are employed as agricultural laborers within
the meaning of Section 2 (3) of the Act and must be excluded from
the unit hereinafter found appropriate with respect to time spent
in such agricultural work. Truck drivers are primarily engaged in
supplying alfalfa to the mill for processing. We find that these truck
drivers are not employed as agricultural laborers and may be in-
cluded in the unit of mill workers?
We find that the following employees of the Employer at its alfalfa
mill near Holtville, California, constitute a unit appropriate for the
purposes of collective bargaining within the meaning of Section 9 (b)
of the Act : All mill employees, including mill operators, pellet
machine operators, sackers, mechanics, their helpers, and truck drivers,
8 Mowers, rakers, and choppers may make minor repairs to their own equipment. If
field maintenance men are not able to make necessary repairs, a mechanic from the mill
may come into the field to assist them or the field equipment may be taken to the mill
for repair.
4 See footnote 2, above.
8 See Wage and Hour Div., Interpretative Bulletin No. 14, June 1940, pars. 5 (a) and
11. The Board has excluded as agricultural laborers employees engaged in operations
similar to those performed by these employees . Allied Mills , Inc., 96 NLRB 369; Archer-
Daniels-Mtdland Company, W. J Small Company Division, 97 NLRB 1463.
e E. Clemens Horst Company , 23 NLRB 1193.
° Cf. Calaf et al. v. Gonzalez at al., 127 F. 2d 934 (C. A. 1) ; Bowie et al. v. Gonzalez
et al., 117 F. 2d 11 (C. A. 1).
CHESTY FOODS, INC. 1185
but excluding mowers, rakers, choppers, field maintenance men, office
and clerical employees, watchmen, guards, and supervisors e
5. The Employer operates its mill on a year-round basis, its greatest
activity occurring between November and May of the following year.
From time to time, as weather and other conditions require, the Em-
ployer furnishes work in its mill to persons regularly employed as
agricultural laborers in the fields. The record, however, does not dis-
close that these persons spend any appreciable portion of their regular
time working in the mill. Although, while engaged in mill, work,
they properly come within the appropriate unit and may be bargained
for with other employees in the unit for such mill work, they do not
appear to have sufficient interests in their employment as mill workers
to justify their eligibility to vote in the election directed among mill
employees.,, For this reason, we find them ineligible to vote in the,
election.
[Text of Direction of Election omitted from publication in this
volume.]
8 Because the Employer has no employees in the categories of engineer or leadman
operator and shipping and receiving clerks, we make no unit finding for these categories.
° Archer-Daniels-Midland Company, W . J. Small Company Division, supra; The Ocala
Star Banner, 97 NLRB 384 ; L. Maxoey, Inc., 78 NLRB 525.
CHESTY FOODS, INC. and TEAMSTERS UNION, LOCAL 144, INTERNA-
TIONAL BROTHERHOOD OF TEAMSTERS, CHAUFFEURS, WAREHOUSEMEN
& HELPERS OF AMERICA, AFL, PETITIONEB. Case No. 35-RC-653.
April 14, 1952
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 A. Butler,
hearing officer. The hearing officer's rulings made at the hearing
are free from prejudicial error and are hereby affirmed.
Pursuant to the provisions of Section 3 (b) of the Act, the Board
has delegated its powers in connection with this case to a three-mem-
ber panel [Chairman Herzog and Members Houston and Murdock].
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 em-
ployees of the Employer.
3. A question affecting commerce exists concerning the representa-
tion of employees of the Employer within the meaning of Section 9
(c) (1) and Section 2 (6) and (7) of the Act.
98 NLRB No. 170,