Cite as: 516 U. S. 85 (1995)
Opinion of the Court
abandonment of the service to the other." Restatement (Second) of Agency § 226, at 498 (emphasis added).
The Board, in quoting this rule, concluded that service to the union for pay does not "involve abandonment of . . . service" to the company. 309 N. L. R. B., at 1254.
And, that conclusion seems correct. Common sense suggests that as a worker goes about his or her ordinary tasks during a working day, say, wiring sockets or laying cable, he or she is subject to the control of the company employer, whether or not the union also pays the worker. The company, the worker, the union, all would expect that to be so. And, that being so, that union and company interests or control might sometimes differ should make no difference. As Prof. Seavey pointed out many years ago, "[o]ne can be a servant of one person for some acts and the servant of another person for other acts, even when done at the same time," for example, where "a city detective, in search of clues, finds employment as a waiter and, while serving the meals, searches the customer's pockets." W. Seavey, Handbook of the Law of Agency § 85, p. 146 (1964). The detective is the servant both "of the restaurateur" (as to the table waiting) and "of the city" (as to the pocket searching). Ibid. How does it differ from Prof. Seavey's example for the company to pay the worker for electrical work, and the union to pay him for organizing? Moreover, union organizers may limit their organizing to nonwork hours. See, e. g., Republic Aviation Corp. v. NLRB, 324 U. S. 793 (1945); Beth Israel Hospital v. NLRB, 437 U. S. 483, 492-493 (1978). If so, union organizing, when done for pay but during nonwork hours, would seem equivalent to simple moonlighting, a practice wholly consistent with a company's control over its workers as to their assigned duties.
Town & Country's "abandonment" argument is yet weaker insofar as the activity that constitutes an "abandonment," i. e., ordinary union organizing activity, is itself specifically protected by the Act. See, e. g., ibid. (employer restrictions
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