An employer who engaged in operations specified in section 13(b)(4)
which he performs on the marine products and byproducts described in
that section may operate a business which engages also in operations of
a different character or one in which some of the activities carried on
are not functionally necessary to the conduct of operations named in
section 13(b)(4). In such a business there will ordinarily
be, in addition to the employees employed in such named operations,
other employees who are nonexempt because their work is concerned
entirely or in substantial part with carrying on activities which
constitute neither the actual engagement in the named operations nor the
performance of functions which are, as a practical matter, directly and
necessarily a part of their employer's conduct of such named operations.
Ordinarily, as indicated in Sec. 784.156, such nonexempt employees will
not be employed in an establishment which is exclusively devoted by the
employer to the named operations during the period of their employment.
It is usually when the named operations are not being carried on, or in
places wholly or partly devoted to other operations, that employees of
such an employer will be performing functions which are not so
necessarily related to the conduct of the operations named in section
13(b)(4) as to come within the exemption. Typical illustrations of the
occupations in which such nonexempt workers may be found (although
employment in such an occupation does not necessarily mean that the
worker is nonexempt) are the following: General office work (such as
maintaining employment, social security, payroll and other records,
handling general correspondence, etc., as distinguished from
``marketing'' or ``distributing'' work like that described in
Sec. 784.155), custodial, maintenance, watching, and guarding
occupations; furnishing food, lodging, transportation, or nursing
services to workers; and laboratory occupations such as those concerned
with development of new products. Such workers are, of course, not
physically engaged in operations named in section 13(b)(4) in the
ordinary case, and they are not exempt unless they can be shown to be
``employed in'' such operations on other grounds. But any of them may
come within the exemption in a situation where the employer can show
that the functions which they perform, in view of all the facts and
circumstances under which the named operations are carried on, are
actually so integrated with or essential to the conduct of the named
operations as to be, in practical effect directly and necessarily a part
of the operations for which exemption was intended. Thus, for example,
if canning operations described in section 13(b)(4) are carried on in a
location where the canning employees cannot obtain necessary food unless
the canner provides it, his employment of culinary employees to provide
such food is functionally so necessary to the conduct of the canning
operations that their work is, as a practical matter, a part of such
operations, and the exemption will apply to them. On like principle, the
exemption may apply to a watchman whose services are required during
performance of the named operations in order to guard against
spontaneous combustion of the products of such operations and other
occurrences which may jeopardize the conduct of the operations.
