(6) a night watchman employed in a plant in which veneer was manufactured from logs and from which a substantial portion of the manufactured product was shipped in interstate commerce (Walton v. Southern Package Corp., 320 U.S. 540 (1944));
(7) employees putting in stand-by time in the auxiliary fire-fighting service of an employer engaged in interstate commerce (Armour & Co. v. Wantock, 323 U.S. 126 (1944));
(8) warehouse and central office employees of an interstate retail chain store system (Phillips Co. v. Walling, 324 U.S. 490 (1945));
(9) employees of an independent contractor engaged in repairing abutments and substructures of bridges which were part of the line of an interstate railroad (Fitzgerald Co. v. Pedersen, 324 U.S. 720 (1945));
(10) maintenance employees of an office building which was owned and operated by a manufacturing corporation and in which 58 per cent of the rental space was used for its central offices, where its production of goods for interstate commerce was administered, managed and controlled, although the goods were actually produced at plants located elsewhere (Borden Company v. Borella, 325 U.S. 679 (1945));
(11) the employees of an electrical contractor, locally engaged in commercial and industrial wiring and dealing in electrical motors and generators for commercial and industrial uses, whose customers are engaged in the production of goods for interstate commerce (Roland Co. v. Walling, 326 U.S. 657-678 (1946));
(12) employees of a window-cleaning company, the greater part of whose work is done on the windows of industrial plants of producers of goods for interstate commerce (Martino v. Michigan Window Cleaning Company, 327 U.S. 173-178 (1946));
(13) mechanics engaged in servicing and maintaining equipment of a motor transportation company which is engaged in interstate commerce (Boutell v. Walling, 327 U.S. 463 (1946)). Nor does the maxim "de minimis" apply to the act. Hence the publishers of a daily newspaper only about one half of one per cent of whose circulation is outside the State of publication are not by that fact excluded from the operation of the act. (Mabee v. White Plains Publishing Co., 327 U.S. 178 (1946)). On the other hand, an employee whose work it is to prepare meals and serve them to maintenance-of-way employees of an interstate railroad in pursuance of a contract between his employer and the railroad company is not "engaged in commerce" within the meaning of §§ 6 and 7 of the Fair Labor Standards Act (McLeod v. Threlkeld, 319 U.S. 491 (1943)); nor are maintenance employees of a typical metropolitan office building operated as an independent enterprise, which is used and is to be used for offices by every variety of tenants, including some producers of goods for commerce (10 East 40th St. v. Callus, 325 U.S. 578 (1945)); nor are maintenance employees of a building corporation which furnishes loft space to tenants engaged in production for interstate commerce "unless an adequate proportion of such tenants are so engaged." (Schulte v. Gangi, 328 U.S. 108 (1946)). Also Section 12 (a) of the Fair Labor Standards Act, which provides that "no producer, * * * shall ship or deliver for shipment in commerce any goods produced in an establishment * * * in or about which * * * any oppressive child labor has been employed * * *" was held inapplicable to a company engaged in the transmission in interstate commerce of telegraph messages, (Western Union v. Lenroot, 323 U.S. 490 (1945)). The decision was a five-to-four one. It should be added that the Court has not always been unanimous in favoring coverage by the act. In the Borden case above, Chief Justice Stone, speaking for himself and Justice Roberts, protested, as follows: "No doubt there are philosophers who would argue, what is implicit in the decision now rendered, that in a complex modern society there is such interdependence of its members that the activities of most of them are necessary to the activities of most others. But I think that Congress did not make that philosophy the basis of the coverage of the Fair Labor Standards Act. It did not, by a 'house-that-Jack-built' chain of causation, bring within the sweep of the statute the ultimate causa causarum which result in the production of goods for commerce. Instead it defined production as a physical process. It said in § 3 (j) 'Produced means produced, manufactured, mined, handled, or in any other manner worked on' and declared that those who participate in any of these processes 'or in any process or occupation necessary to' them are engaged in production and subject to the Act." 325 U.S. 679, 685. On the other hand, the holding in 10 East 40th St., above, was a five-to-four decision, and Justice Frankfurter, speaking for the Court took pains to explain that Congress in enacting the Fair Labor Standards Act, "did not see fit, * * *, to exhaust its constitutional power over commerce." 325 U.S. 578-579. See 87 Law Ed. pp. 87-105 for a note reviewing both Supreme Court, lower Federal Court, and State court cases defining "engaged in commerce" as that term is used in the Fair Labor Standards Act.
[466] 50 Stat. 246.
[467] 315 U.S. 110 (1942).