Cite as: 517 U. S. 392 (1996)
Opinion of O'Connor, J.
§ 3(f), to wit, "farming in all its branches," including "the raising of . . . poultry." If the sine qua non of status as an agricultural laborer is employment by the farmer or the independent grower, the "or on a farm" clause is redundant, because chicken catching crews that are agents or employees of the farmers themselves fall within the "by a farmer" clause. Ordinarily, "terms connected by a disjunctive [are] given separate meanings, unless the context dictates otherwise." Reiter v. Sonotone Corp., 442 U. S. 330, 339 (1979). The "or on a farm" clause has independent significance only if the work encompassed by that clause is performed by someone other than a farmer or the farmer's own agents or employees. Chevron deference is not owed to a Board construction of the statute that effectively redacts one of the statute's operative clauses.
The Court also cites with approval a Department of Labor (DOL) interpretive regulation that addresses contractual arrangements for raising poultry such as those between Holly Farms and the independent growers. The DOL regulation declares that "[e]mployees of [a] feed dealer or processor who perform work on a farm as an incident to or in conjunction with the raising of poultry on the farm are employed in 'secondary' agriculture." 29 CFR § 780.126 (1995). The Court thus accepts as reasonable a DOL regulation that plainly suggests that even workers employed by a poultry processor such as Holly Farms can be engaged in secondary agriculture and also accepts as reasonable a Board interpretation of § 3(f) that, in essence, dictates that employees of a processor cannot be employed in secondary agriculture. See ante, at 404 ("We think it sensible . . . that the Board homed in on the status of the live-haul crews' employer") (emphasis in original). The Court cannot have it both ways, and it need not, since the "or on a farm" clause is plainly indifferent to the nature of the employment relationship.
The Court's second misstep likewise derives from its deference to a Board construction that lacks foundation in the
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