(a) The term hand harvest laborer for purposes of this exemption
refers to farm workers engaged in harvesting by hand, or with hand
tools, soil grown
crops such as cotton, tobacco, grains, fruits, and vegetables. The term
would not include harvesting operations performed by an employee with an
electrically powered mechanical device, such as a ``blueberry picking
tool.'' ``Hand-harvesting'' refers only to soil-grown crops and does not
include any operation involving animals, such as shearing or lambing of
sheep and catching chickens. Hand-harvesting is defined as manually
gathering or severing the crop from the soil, stems, or roots at its
growing position in the fields. Included are integral related
operations, closely related geographically and in point of time, which
are performed before the transportation to concentration points on the
farm.
For example:
(1) Employees who take tobacco leaves from the pickers and string
them on poles by hand qualify as ``hand harvest laborers'' because the
stringing operation is performed in the field almost simultaneously with
the picking and before transportation to the concentration point on the
farm (drying shed).
(2) The picking up of tomatoes by hand after hand pulling from the
vines is ``hand-harvesting,'' as it is performed where the crop is
severed and prior to its transportation to the packing shed.
(b) The definition is limited to harvesting, and the performance by
the hand harvester of any nonharvesting operation in the same workweek
would cause the loss of the section 13(a)(6)(C) exemption.
For example:
(1) Employees who wrap tomatoes in a packing shed would not qualify,
as the wrapping is a nonharvesting operation. (Schultz v. Durrence (S.D.
Ga.) 63 CCH. Lab. Cas. 32,387; 19 W.H. Cases 747.)
(2) Employees who hand pick small undesirable fruit prior to
harvesting in order to insure a better crop would not qualify for the
exemption. This is a preharvest culling operation performed as a part of
the cultivation and growing operations not harvesting.
(3) Employees who chop cotton, since this is a nonharvesting
operation.
