Holly Farms v. Nat'l Labor Relations Bd.

Decision Date23 April 1996
Docket Number95210
Citation134 L.Ed.2d 593,116 S.Ct. 1396,517 U.S. 392
PartiesHOLLY FARMS CORPORATION et al., Petitioners, v. NATIONAL LABOR RELATIONS BOARD et al
CourtU.S. Supreme Court
Syllabus *

See United States v. Detroit Lumber Co., 200 U.S. 321, 337, 26 S.Ct. 282, 287, 50 L.Ed. 499.

Respondent National Labor Relations Board (Board) approved a bargaining unit at the Wilkesboro, North Carolina, processing plant of petitioner Holly Farms Corporation, a vertically integrated poultry producer. The approved unit included workers described as ''live-haul'' crews--teams of chicken catchers, forklift operators, and truckdrivers, who collect for slaughter chickens raised as broilers by independent contract growers, and transport the birds to the processing plant. On Holly Farms' petition for review, the Fourth Circuit enforced the Board's order. The court held that the Board's classification of the live-haul workers as ''employee[s]'' protected by the National Labor Relations Act (NLRA or Act), rather than ''agricultural laborer[s]'' excluded from the Act's coverage by § 2(3) of the NLRA, rested on a reasonable interpretation of the Act and was consistent with the Board's prior decisions and with the Eighth Circuit's case law.

Held: The Board reasonably aligned the live-haul crews with Holly Farms' processing operations, typing them covered ''employee[s],'' not exempt ''agricultural laborer[s]''; therefore, the Fourth Circuit properly deferred to the Board's determination. Pp. ___-___.

(a) The term ''agricultural laborer,'' as used in § 2(3) of the NLRA, derives its meaning from the definition of ''agriculture'' supplied by § 3(f) of the Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938 (FLSA). This definition includes farming in both a primary sense, which includes ''the raising . . . of poultry,'' and a secondary sense, which encompasses practices ''performed by a farmer or on a farm as an incident to or in conjunction with such farming operations.'' When a statutory prescription is not free from ambiguity, the Board must choose between conflicting reasonable interpretations. Courts, in turn, must respect the judgment of the agency empowered to apply the law to varying fact patterns. Bayside Enterprises, Inc. v. NLRB, 429 U.S. 298, 304, 97 S.Ct. 576, 581, 50 L.Ed.2d 494. Pp. ___-___.

(b) The Court confronts no contention that the live-haul crews are engaged in primary agriculture. Thus, the sole question the Court addresses and decides is whether the chicken catchers, forklift operators, and truckdrivers are engaged in secondary agriculture. The live-haul activities are not ''performed by a farmer.'' When an integrated poultry producer contracts with independent growers for the care and feeding of chicks hatched in the producer's hatcheries, the producer's status as a farmer ends with respect to those chicks. Bayside, 429 U.S., at 302, n. 9, 97 S.Ct., at 580, n. 9. The producer does not resume farmer status when its live-haul employees arrive on the independent farms to collect broilers for carriage to slaughter and processing. This conclusion entirely disposes of the contention that the truckdrivers are employed in secondary agriculture, for Holly Farms acknowledges that these crew members do not work "on a farm." P. ___.

(c) The more substantial question is whether the catching and loading of broilers qualifies as work performed ''on a farm as an incident to or in conjunction with'' the independent growers' farming operations. Holly Farms' position that this work is incident to the raising of poultry is a plausible, but not an inevitable, construction of FLSA § 3(f). Hence, a reviewing court must examine the Board's position only for its reasonableness as an interpretation of the governing legislation. P. ___.

(d) The Board concluded that the collection of broilers for slaughter, although performed ''on a farm,'' is not incidental to farming operations. Rather, the Board determined, the live-haul crews' work is tied to Holly Farms' processing operations. This is a reasonable interpretation of the statute. Once the broilers have grown on the farm for seven weeks, the growers' contractual obligation to raise the birds ends, and the work of the live-haul crew begins. The growers do not assist the crews in catching or loading the chickens, and the crews play no role in the growers' performance of their contractual undertakings. Furthermore, the live-haul employees all work out of the Wilkesboro processing plant, begin and end each shift by punching a timeclock at the plant, and are functionally integrated with other processing-plant employees. It was also sensible for the Board to home in on the status of the crews' employer. Pp. ___-___.

(e) The Board's decision adheres to longstanding NLRB precedent, see, e.g., Imco Poultry, Div. of Int'l Multifoods Corp., 202 N.L.R.B. 259, 260, and is supported by the construction of FLSA § 3(f) by the Department of Labor, the agency responsible for administering the FLSA. The Department's interpretative regulations accord with the Board's conclusion that the live-haul crews do not engage in secondary farming and further demonstrate that FLSA § 3(f)'s meaning is not so plain as to bear only one permissible construction in the context at hand. Pp. ___-___.

48 F.3d 1360 (C.A.4 1995), affirmed.

GINSBURG, J., delivered the opinion of the Court, in which STEVENS, KENNEDY, SOUTER, and BREYER, JJ., joined. O'CONNOR, J., filed an opinion concurring in the judgment in part and dissenting in part, in which REHNQUIST, C. J., and SCALIA and THOMAS, JJ., joined.

On Writ of Certiorari to the United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit.

Charles P. Roberts, III, Greensboro, NC, for petitioners.

Richard H. Seamon, Washinton, DC, for respondents.

Justice GINSBURG delivered the opinion of the Court.

This controversy stems from a dispute concerning union representation at the Wilkesboro, North Carolina, headquarters facility of Holly Farms, a corporation engaged in the production, processing, and marketing of poultry products. The parties divide, as have federal courts, over the classification of certain workers, described as ''live-haul'' crews--teams of chicken catchers, forklift operators, and truckdrivers, who collect for slaughter chickens raised as broilers by independent contract growers, and transport the birds to Holly Farms' processing plant. Holly Farms maintains that members of ''live-haul'' crews are ''agricultural laborer[s],'' a category of workers exempt from National Labor Relations Act coverage. The National Labor Relations Board disagreed and approved a Wilkesboro plant bargaining unit including those employees. Satisfied that the Board reasonably aligned the ''live-haul'' crews with the corporation's processing operations, typing them covered ''employee[s],'' not exempt ''agricultural laborer[s],'' we affirm the Court of Appeals' judgment, which properly deferred to the Board's determination.

I
A

Petitioner Holly Farms Corporation, a wholly owned subsidiary of Tyson Foods, Inc., is a vertically integrated poultry producer headquartered in Wilkesboro, North Carolina. 1 Holly Farms' activities encompass numerous poultry operations, including hatcheries, a feed mill, an equipment maintenance center, and a processing plant.

''Broiler'' chickens are birds destined for human food markets. 2 Holly Farms hatches broiler chicks at its own hatcheries, and immediately delivers the chicks to the farms of independent contractors. The contractors then raise the birds into full-grown broiler chickens. Holly Farms pays the contract growers for their services, but retains title to the broilers and supplies the food and medicine necessary to their growth.

When the broilers are seven weeks old, Holly Farms sends its live-haul crews to reclaim the birds and ferry them to the processing plant for slaughter. The live-haul crews--which typically comprise nine chicken catchers, one forklift operator, and one live-haul driver--travel in a flat-bed truck from Holly Farms' processing plant to the farms of the independent growers. At the farms, the chicken catchers enter the coops, manually capture the broilers, and load them into cages. The forklift operator lifts the caged chickens onto the bed of the truck, and the live-haul driver returns the truck, with the loaded cases and the crew, to Holly Farms' processing plant. There, the birds are slaughtered and prepared for shipment to retail stores.

B

In 1989, the Chauffeurs, Teamsters and Helpers, Local 391 (Union), filed a representation petition with the National Labor Relations Board (Board or NLRB), seeking an election in a proposed unit that included live-haul employees working out of Holly Farms' Wilkesboro processing plant. Over Holly Farms' objection, the Board approved the bargaining unit, ruling that the live-haul workers were ''employee[s]'' protected by the National Labor Relations Act (NLRA or Act), 49 Stat. 449, as amended, 29 U.S.C. § 151 et seq., rather than ''agricultural laborer[s]'' excluded from the Act's coverage by § 2(3) of the NLRA, 29 U.S.C. § 152(3). See Holly Farms Corp., 311 N.L.R.B. 273, 273, n. 4, 284 (1993). 3 After further proceedings not relevant here, the Board ordered the corporation to bargain with the Union as the representative of the unit. Id., at 285-286.

The United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit enforced the Board's order. The court held that the Board's classification of the live-haul workers as ''employee[s],'' rather than ''agricultural laborer[s],'' rested ''on a reasonable interpretation of the Act.'' 48 F.3d 1360, 1372 (1995). The Board's reading, the court added, was consistent with the NLRB's prior decisions, see Imco Poultry, Div. of Int'l Multifoods Corp., 202 N.L.R.B. 259, 260-261 (1973), adhered to in Seaboard Farms of Kentucky, Inc., 311 N.L.R.B. No. 159 (1993), and Draper Valley Farms, Inc., 307 N.L.R.B. 1440 (1992), and with the...

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