394
Opinion of the Court
ion concurring in the judgment in part and dissenting in part, in which Rehnquist, C. J., and Scalia and Thomas, JJ., joined, post, p. 409.
Charles P. Roberts III argued the cause and filed briefs for petitioners.
Richard H. Seamon argued the cause for respondents. With him on the brief for respondent National Labor Relations Board were Solicitor General Days, Deputy Solicitor General Wallace, Linda Sher, Norton J. Come, and John Emad Arbab. J. David James, Judith A. Scott, Jon Hiatt, Andrew D. Roth, and Laurence Gold filed a brief for respondent unions.*
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
*Briefs of amici curiae urging reversal were filed for the American Farm Bureau Federation et al. by Robert P. Davis, John J. Rademacher, Michael F. Rosenblum, and Timothy S. Bishop; and for the National Broiler Council by Gary Jay Kushner, John G. Roberts, Jr., and Jonathan S. Franklin.
Joseph A. Wender, Jr., filed a brief for the California Agricultural Labor
Relations Board as amicus curiae.
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