322 U.S. 111 (1944)
The National Labor Relations Board initiated proceedings after Los Angeles Newsboys Local Industrial Union No. 75 filed four petitions for investigation and certification regarding newsboys distributing papers for four Los Angeles daily newspapers published by the respondents, including Hearst Publications, Inc.1
Hearings were held in a consolidated proceeding, after which the Board found that the regular full-time newsboys were employees under the Act, designated appropriate units, and ordered elections.23 The union was selected as representative by majorities of the eligible newsboys and was certified.4 When the respondents refused to bargain, the Board instituted proceedings under section 10 of the Act, held a hearing, found violations of sections 8(1) and 8(5), and ordered the respondents to cease and desist and to bargain collectively.5
Upon the respondents' petitions for review and the Board's petitions for enforcement, the Circuit Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, with one judge dissenting, set aside the Board's orders.6 The court rejected the Board's analysis, independently examined whether the newsboys were employees, applied common-law standards, and concluded they were not.7 The Supreme Court granted certiorari to resolve the question.8
The findings showed that the newsboys, generally mature men dependent on their sales for support, worked full-time at established spots under the supervision of district managers employed by the publishers.9 The publishers fixed the prices at which the newsboys bought and sold the papers, provided credit for papers, allowed returns for unsold copies, and controlled the allocation of papers and sales areas.10 District managers assigned spots, prescribed hours, and enforced standards through sanctions including dismissal. The newsboys received compensation as the difference between purchase and sale prices, with the publishers effectively controlling their earnings.11 They formed stable groups with little turnover, unlike casual bootjackers.12 Checkmen among them performed additional duties for small salaries.13 The Board found the newsboys integral to the publishers' distribution system.14
Whether newsboys who distribute newspapers on the streets of Los Angeles are employees within the meaning of the National Labor Relations Act?15
The term employee in the National Labor Relations Act takes color from its surroundings in the statute.16 It derives meaning from the context of that statute, which must be read in the light of the mischief to be corrected and the end to be attained.17 Congress had in mind a wider field than the narrow technical legal relation of master and servant.18 The applicability of the Act is to be determined broadly by underlying economic facts rather than by previously established legal classifications.19
Yes. The rule applies directly to the established facts in which the newsboys worked full-time at established spots under the supervision of district managers employed by the publishers.20 The publishers fixed the prices at which the newsboys bought and sold the papers.21 They provided credit for papers, allowed returns for unsold copies, and controlled the allocation of papers and sales areas.22 District managers assigned spots, prescribed hours, and enforced standards through sanctions including dismissal. The newsboys received compensation as the difference between purchase and sale prices, with the publishers effectively controlling their earnings. They formed stable groups with little turnover unlike casual bootjackers.23
These economic facts establish that the newsboys were subject to the evils the statute was designed to eradicate.24 The relationship was more nearly one of employment than of independent business enterprise with respect to the ends sought to be accomplished by the legislation.25
The newsboys are employees within the meaning of the National Labor Relations Act.26
Related opinions on this issue
Justice Reed concurred in the result.27 He expressed the opinion that the test of coverage for employees is that announced by the Board in the matter of Stockholders Publishing Company, Inc., and Los Angeles Newsboys Local Industrial Union No. 75, C.I.O., and other similar cases, decided January 9, 1941.28 That test was set forth at 28 N.L.R.B.
1006, 1022-23.29 His concurrence aligns with the majority outcome while pointing specifically to the Board's own prior articulation of the employee standard in the representation proceeding underlying this dispute.30
Justice Roberts dissented.31 He argued that it is plain that newsboys are not employees of the respondents within the meaning and intent of the National Labor Relations Act.32 When Congress in section 2(3) said the term employee shall include any employee, it stated as clearly as language could do it that the provisions of the Act were to extend to those who as a result of decades of tradition bear the named relationship.33
He concluded that the question who is an employee is a judicial and not an administrative question to be determined by common-law standards.34 Roberts rejected any notion that the Board could redefine employment to promote what it understood to be the statute's underlying purpose.35 He maintained that the facts demonstrated the newsboys were not employees under the traditional understanding to which Congress referred.36
Whether the National Labor Relations Board's designation of collective bargaining units for full-time newsboys selling at established spots was appropriate under the Act?37
The Board has wide discretion in determining an appropriate bargaining unit.38 Its choice is limited specifically only by the requirement that it be an employer unit, craft unit, plant unit, or subdivision thereof.39 The selection must be made so as to insure to employees the full benefit of their right to self-organization and to collective bargaining, and otherwise to effectuate the policies of the Act.40
Yes. The rule applies to the established facts in which the Board selected units consisting of full-time newsboys at established spots, excluding casual and part-time workers, based on their stable employment and dependence on the work for livelihood.41 The Board predicated its designations in part upon the finding that the units included men who were responsible workers continuously and regularly employed as vendors and dependent upon their sales for their livelihood while schoolboys and transient or casual workers were excluded.42 This distinction is consistent with the need for responsible bargaining.43
The record supports that the units substantially effectuate the Board's theory without mathematical precision being required.44
The Board's designation of the units was appropriate under the Act.45