Weyerhaeuser Co.

National Labor Relations Board - Board Decisions

Jun 20, 1969

176 N.L.R.B. 913 (N.L.R.B. 1969)

WEYERHAEUSER COMPANY 913
Weyerhaeuser Company and Western States
Regional Council No. III , International
Woodworkers of America , AFL-CIO, Petitioner.
Case 19-RC-5000
June 20, 1969
DECISION AND DIRECTION OF
ELECTION
By Chairman McCulloch and Members Brown
and Zagoria
Upon a petition duly filed on January 17, 1969,
under Section 9(c) of the National Labor Relations
Act, as amended, a hearing was held before Hearing
Officer Douglas B. Powell. Briefs have been filed by
the Employer and Petitioner.,
Pursuant to the provisions of Section 3(b) of the
National Labor Relations Act, as amended, the
National Labor Relations Board has delegated its
powers in connection with this case to a
three-member panel.
The Board has considered the Hearing Officer's
rulings made at the hearing and finds that they are
free from prejudicial error and they are hereby
affirmed.
Upon the entire record in this case, including the
briefs filed by the parties, the Board finds:
1. The Employer is engaged in commerce within
the meaning of the Act and it will effectuate the
purposes of the Act to assert jurisdiction herein.
2. The labor organization involved claims to
represent certain employees of the Employer.
3. The Petitioner seeks a unit of tree nursery
employees at the Employer's Rochester,
Washington, tree nursery. The Employer contends
that these employees are agricultural laborers
exempted by Section 2(3) from coverage under the
Act. We find no merit in this contention.
The Employer is an integrated forest products
company. It cuts mature timber on its own
timberlands and, from such timber, produces a full
line of wood products. Weyerhaeuser also engages in
reforestation, by aerial seeding , and hand planting
on its timberlands. Seeds for forest trees are
generally obtained either from forest land of the
Employer or from other forests. A small portion of
these seeds are then sent to the Employer's nursery
and planted, cared for, harvested, and ultimately
shipped to one of the Employer's forests for
replanting.
The employees in issue work at a nursery near
Rochester, Washington. The nursery property
consists of 159 acres and was devoted to agriculture
prior to its purchase by Weyerhaeuser a few years
ago. There is no forest or timber on the premises.
The nursery product consists of tree seedlings and
the output is used entirely by the Employer.
The nursery employees do the fertilizing, tilling,
irrigating, planting, cultivating, harvesting, and
processing, necessary to produce the seedlings.
Usually, after 2 years' growth, the seedlings are
harvested. They are removed from the soil and
packaged and stored on the nursery premises in
large paper bags and, eventually, delivered to
Weyerhaeuser lands. Some seedlings are
transplanted for additional periods of growth at the
nursery.' The equipment used for these operations
is, generally, farm equipment rather than equipment
used in logging or forestry operations.
The Board's annual appropriation acts since 1947,
including our present appropriation,2 have contained
a rider requiring the Board to follow the definition
of the term "Agricultural" contained in Section 3(f)
of the Fair Labor Standards Act.3 Under Section
3(f) forestry or lumbering operations are not
considered as agricultural in nature unless
performed by a farmer, or on a farm, as an incident
to or in conjunction with such farming operation. In
Title 29, Part 780.177 CFR, the Department of
Labor states that "Operations in a forest tree
nursery such as seeding new beds and growing and
transplanting forest seedlings are not farming
operations." In agreement with the Department of
Labor, we find that a tree nursery operation does
not come within the ambit of the agricultural
definition in Section 3(f) of the Fair Labor
Standards Act, but is, rather, a forestry operation.
The nursery employees therefore are not exempt
from coverage under the National Labor Relations
Act, as amended.
Accordingly, we find that a question affecting
commerce exists concerning the representation of
employees of the Employer within the meaning of
Section 9(c)(l) and Section 2(6) and (7) of the Act.
4. We find that the following employees constitute
a unit appropriate for the purpose of collective
bargaining within the meaning of Section 9(b) of the
Act:'
All employees of the Employer in its operation on
Gate Road, N.W. of Rochester, Washington,
excluding office clerical employees, professional
'in addition to growing seedlings directly in the soil, some seedlings are
planted and grown in pots for periods of l month to 1 year, on an
experimental basis.
'29 U.S.C. 203.
'81 Stat . 41)8 (1967)
'The Employer generally agrees with the scope of the unit found
appropriate , but contends that it should be described as "all hourly paid
employees" rather than "all employees" as sought by the Petitioner. In
support of its contention the Employer asserts that its Rochester tree
nursery is still under development and that future operations may entail
the necessity to employ other classifications such as over -the-road
truckdrivers, salaried technicians, laboratory employees , agronomists, plant
clericals, outside salesmen, retail clerks and others, whom the Board might
exclude from the unit herein found appropriate . We find no merit in the
Employer 's contention . The Board traditionally describes
collective-bargaining units as they exist at the time of the hearing, and
does not attempt to pass on the possible inclusion or exclusion of
classifications which may or may not be employed in the future . We find
that the description set forth above is adequate and appropriate to describe
the collective bargaining unit requested in this proceeding.
176 NLRB No. 128
914 DECISIONS OF NATIONAL LABOR RELATIONS BOARD
errlp4oyees, guards and supervisors as defined in
the Act.
[Direction of Elections omitted from publication.]
'In order to assure that all eligible voters may have the opportunity to
be informed of the issues in the exercise of their statutory right to vote, all
parties to the election should have access to a list of voters and their
addresses which may be used to communicate with them Excelsior
Underwear Inc, 156 NLRB 1236, N L R. B. v. Wyman-Gordon Company,
394 U.S. 759 . Accordingly, it is hereby directed that an election elegibility
list, containing the names and addresses of all the eligible voters, must be
filed by the Employer with the Regional Director for Region 19 within 7
days of the date of this Decision and Direction of Election . The Regional
Director shall make the list available to all parti es to the election. No
extension of time to file this list shall be granted by the Regional Director
except in extraordinary circumstances. Failure to comply with this
requirement shall be grounds for setting aside the election whenever proper
objections are filed