The Langdale Co.

National Labor Relations Board - Board Decisions

Mar 26, 1951

93 N.L.R.B. 946 (N.L.R.B. 1951)

946 DECISIONS OF NATIONAL LABOR RELATIONS BOARD
Board, has the responsibility and the experience of administering the
Fair Labor Standards Act.'° Accordingly, we find that the employ-
ees of the Employer herein, whether performing work on crude gum
processed for and on account of the tree farmer or purchased from a
tree farmer, are not employed as "agricultural" laborers within the
meaning of Section 2 (3) of the National Labor Relations Act.
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.
4. The appropriate unit :
We find that all production and maintenance employees of the Em-
ployer at its plant in Jacksonville, Florida, excluding office and cleri-
cal employees, professional employees, guards, and supervisors as
defined in the Act, constitute a unit appropriate for the purposes of
collective bargaining within the meaning of Section 9 (b) of the Act.
[Text of Direction of Election omitted from publication in this
volume.]
10 Imperial Garden Growers , 91 NLRB 1034.
THE LANGDALE COMPANY and INTERNATIONAL CHEMICAL WORKERS
UNION, LOCAL No. 375, AFL, PETITIONER. Case No. 1O-RC-786.
March 26, 1951
Decision and Direction of Election
Upon a petition duly filed, a hearing in this matter was held before
Jerold B. Sindler, hearing 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 a Georgia corporation engaged near Valdosta,
Georgia, in producing, processing, and selling turpentine, rosin, and
preserved wood products. In connection with these operations, it
owns and operates a naval stores processing plant, wood preserving
plant, machine shop, garage, and sawmill. The Employer is also
' In its brief, the Employer in effect moved to dismiss this proceeding on the grounds
that evidence was not adduced to prove that the Petitioner represents a substantial number
of employees in the unit sought and that it is in compliance with the filing requirements
of the Act. As we have frequently held, the showing of interest and proof of compliance
are matters for administrative determination and are not litigable by the parties. South
Georgia Pecan Shelling Co ., 85 NLRB 591. ,Moreover, we are administratively satisfied
that the Petitioner has a substantial interest and that it has fully complied with the filing
requirements of the Act. Accordingly, the Employer ' s motion to dismiss is hereby denied.
At the hearing and in its brief, the Employer also moved to exclude from the unit
the individuals engaged in its naval stores operations , on the ground that such workers
are "agricultural laborers ." For the reasons stated hereinafter , the motion is hereby
denied.
93 NLRB No. 169.
THE LANGDALE COMPANY 947
engaged in tree farming, and raises tobacco, corn, peanuts, cotton,
hogs, and cattle.'
With respect to its wood preserving operations, the Employer,
during 1949, purchased $175,000 worth of creosote, all of which was
shipped from points outside the State of Georgia. Total sales of
its lumber products during the same period amounted to over
$1,000,000, of which $200,000 represented shipments to customers out-
side the State, $200,000 to railway companies doing an interstate
business, and the remainder to the Rural Electrification Authority,
telephone and utility companies, and Georgia municipalities.
As to its naval stores operations, which involve the distillation of
turpentine and rosin from crude gum (oleoresin) taken from living
trees, approximately 35 percent of all the crude gum processed by
the Employer is taken from its own trees. Five percent is purchased
from other tree farmers. The remainder, about 60 percent of the
crude gum processed, is produced by other tree farmers and is proc-
essed by the instant Employer for such tree farmers on a cash or toll
basis. During 1949, the Employer secured credit for approximately
95 percent of all the turpentine and rosin it produced from the Com-
modity Credit Corporation, a United States governmental agency.
During this period, the Employer, acting as trustee for the independ-
ent crude gum producers who delivered their gum to it for processing,
received approximately $2,000,000 from the Commodity Credit Corpo-
ration for turpentine and rosin which it had processed, of which
approximately $300,000 represented turpentine and rosin distilled
from crude gum produced outside the State. In addition, the Em-
ployer sold approximately $75,000 worth of turpentine and rosin to
a corporation within the State for resale in interstate commerce.
We find that the Employer is engaged in commerce within the
meaning of the National Labor Relations Act.
2. The labor organization involved claims to represent employees
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.
4. The appropriate unit :
The parties agree, in substance, that the appropriate unit should
include the approximately 87 employees of the Employer engaged in
its wood preserving, cross-tie loading, sawmill, garage, tractor, and
machine shop operations. However, they are in disagreement with
respect to the approximately 23 workers engaged in the Employer's
' The record shows that the Employer has recently planted over 3,000 , 000 pine trees
which are to be used mainly for the production of crude gum. The record, however, does
not disclose the amount of expenditures made or income earned in the Employer's tree
and dirt farming operations
948 DECISIONS OF NATIONAL LABOR RELATIONS BOARD
naval stores operations, whom the Employer would exclude as "agri-
cultural laborers" within the meaning of Section 2 (3) of the Na-
tional Labor Relations Act.
Section 2 (3) of the National Labor Relations Act specifically
defines the term "employee" to exclude "any individual employed as
an agricultural laborer." As to the meaning of "agricultural la-
borer," a rider to the Board's current Appropriations Act makes
determinative the definition of "agriculture" contained in Section 3
(f) of the Fair Labor Standards Act, and, by reference, the definition
of "agricultural commodities" contained in Section 15 (g) of the
Agricultural Marketing Act.3
As already noted, approximately 35 percent of the Employer's
naval stores operations is performed on crude gum taken from its
own trees; about 60 percent on crude gum processed on behalf of the
original crude gum producers on a cash or toll basis, and 5 percent on
crude gum purchased from other tree farmers. The workers involved
apparently handle all naval stores irrespective of their origin.
In the Jacksonville Processing Corporation case,4 the Board con-
sidered and followed the recent interpretation of Section 3 (f) of the
Fair Labor Standards Act adopted by the Department of Labor and
its Wage and Hour Division on the status of naval stores personnel.
The interpretation makes it clear that only the operations performed
by the naval stores workers upon the crude gum taken from the Em-
ployer's own trees constitute agricultural activity, and that their re-
maining activity, comprising 65 percent of the naval stores handled,
is nonagricultural in character. Accordingly, as their work is pre-
dominantly nonagricultural, we find that the naval stores workers
are not agricultural employees within the exemption of the Act .5 And
in view of their identity of interests with the other employees in the
requested unit, we shall include them.6
The following employees of the Employer constitute a unit appro-
priate for the purposes of collective bargaining within the meaning
of Section 9 (b) of the Act:
Section 3 (f) of the Fair Labor Standards Act provides in pertinent part as follows
"Agriculture includes farming in all its branches and am-ng other things includes .
the production . of any agricultural . . . commodities (including commodities defined
as agricultural commodities in section 15 (g) of the Agricultural Marketing Act as
amended) "
Section 15 (g) of the Agricultural Marketing Act defines an agricultural commodity to
include "in addition to other agi icultural commodities, crude gum (oleoresin) from a living
tree, and the following products as processed by the original producer of the crude gum