Court Opinion

ID: 9447221
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-03 22:29:18.620872+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:30:57.011855
License: Public Domain

ALDRICH, Circuit Judge
(dissenting).
I regret that I am unable to concur in the opinion of the court in this case. I quite agree that the district court’s finding that the workers are not employees of the individual defendants, Bird and Whitaker, is based on substantial evidence, and must be sustained. In other *366words, the corporate defendant, hereinafter called Cooperative, must be taken to be member-controlled, and .not the alter ego of the individual defendants. But the court errs when it says that it is controlled by “the” members. It is clear that it is controlled by only some of them. A substantial number live outside of the state, in another part of the country, and obviously take no part.* Others live in distant portions of the state, or are old or infirm, or for other reasons do not find it worth their while to attend meetings. Such .“members” cannot be said to exercise entrepreneurial skill, and they do not exercise, and in many instances are unable to exercise, any control, effective or otherwise. To them Cooperative simply furnishes an opportunity to do homework, and to dispose of it, that is to say, 'get paid for it. The workers are told what items to make, are paid at stated ratés, and are “expelled” if their work does not measure up to Cooperative’s standards.- It seems to me that all .inactive members differ in no respect from employees of any homework employer.
However, I think the matter lies deeper’than this, and that the court is in error even if it could be assumed that all workers had a real vote, and an equal interest in Cooperative’s affairs. Cooperative still constitutes an independent entity within the meaning of the Act, whether it be regarded as a corporation, or as an “organized group of persons.” 29 U.S.C.A. § 203(a). Indeed, this fact is, concededly, the principal reason for its existence. As the organizational letter pointed out, it serves, among other things, to permit the members “to purchase supplies at wholesale prices,” and “to market their products more readily.” The testimony emphasized the vital importance of this. In the truest sense Cooperative “suffer[s] or permit[s these ladies] to work.” 29 U.S.C.A. § 203(g). If it were not for its existence (or that of some similar central organizational group), with the economic advantages flowing therefrom, no member could’ work at all. The organization of a group, all of whom will work in a unified direction, is a sina qua non of effective operation. Each member is working for the group, for its advantage, through the medium of Cooperative, and not simply for herself. This seems to me a peculiarly poor case in which to say that the worker “suffer[s] or permit[s herself] to work.” Rather, it is Cooperative that is. affording individual members the opportunity to work, and paying them for it.
If the thought is that Cooperative is-simply a selling organization, because it serves to dispose of the product of its; members, I suggest that it is no more a sales organization than is any other employer of homeworkers whose amount of' production is self-controlled (but who-were restricted to selling to it). Clearly it does much more than dispose of the-product. It is true, as the court says, that the “items produced by the members are the units used for measuring each, member’s share in the cooperative’s net income.” But of what piecework employee is that not so, if one defines net-income as the amount available from gross sales, after deductions, for labor and goods ? Is the court saying it makes, a difference because there is nothing-provided by way of profits to stockholders ?
I cannot help feeling that the court has been moved by sympathy with the natural desire of these ladies to make some-use of their spare time, in an awareness of the predicament they would be in if' the Act were to be held applicable. But there is another side to the coin. These-ladies are competing with other producers who must, perforce, respect the-standards of the Act. Because of the-existence of Cooperative they can, or believe they can, compete with other producers satisfactorily, whereas individually they could not hope to do so. If, for-some reason, it is “fair” not to apply the Act to them, such a “fairness” is unfair to those others who must live up> *367to it. Possibly the court feels that since the members are receiving from Cooperative all the proceeds available, the Act is inapplicable. However, neither economic inability to perform, nor the low commercial value of the work done, are considerations under the Act. Historically, the application of minimum-wage laws always threatens certain fringe, or marginal activities. But it is not for the courts to temper the wind to the legislatively shorn lamb. Mitchell v. Railway Express Agency, D.C.D.Me.1958, 160 F. Supp. 628.
The fact that members exercise a joint voice over Cooperative’s management, and elect officers and an executive committee, seems to me irrelevant. If a union were given a voice in management, would its members cease to be employees? If an employee acquires stock in his company, does he cease to be an employee? I do not believe that would be so even if the employees together acquired all of the stock — they would still he working for the corporate entity. Their employment status would remain, even though they might have acquired some additional status. Phrased in terms of the philosophy of the Act, this would be because while collectively they would have a voice, individually they would have none, or none of any consequence. And so here. The Supreme Court has emphasized that “employment” under this Act is broadly defined. United States v. Rosenwasser, 1945, 323 U.S. 360, 362, 65 S.Ct. 295, 89 L.Ed. 301; Rutherford Food Corp. v. McComb, 1947, 331 U.S. 722, 728-729, 67 S.Ct. 1473, 91 L.Ed. 1772, rehearing denied 332 U.S. 785, 68 S.Ct. 29, 92 L.Ed. 368. In a particular instance a court may believe, to quote the court below, that some particular workers do not “require the protection of the Act.” My brethren do not pick up this language, but I believe it accurately states their rationale. Perhaps, individually, some in fact do not. But I see no more basis for a court’s saying that as the members “suffer or permit” themselves to work they do not require the protection of the Act, than there is for so determining as to any other worker who “voluntarily” chooses to work. That concept died a quarter of a century ago. I would reverse.

 “Each member is entitled to one vote, to be cast in person ana not by proxy.” 170 E. Supp. 743, 749.