§784.103. Adoption of the exemption in the original 1938 Act. — Inbound Citations

The expression “offshore activities” is used to describe the category of named operations pertaining to the acquisition from nature of aquatic forms of animal and vegetable life. As originally enacted in 1938, section 13(a)(5) exempted not only employees employed in such “offshore” or “trip” activities but also employees employed in related activities on shore which were similarly affected by the natural factors previously discussed (see § 784.103, and Fleming v. Hawkeye Pearl Button Co., 113 F. 2d 52). However, the intent of the 1961 amendments to the Act was to remove from the exemption the so-called onshore activities and “leave the exemption applicable to ‘offshore’ activities connected with the procurement of the aquatic products” (S. Rep. 145, 87th Cong., first session, p. 33). Despite its comprehensive reach (see §§ 784.105 and 784.106), the exemption, like the similar exemption is the Act for agriculture, is “meant to apply only” to the activities named in the statute (see Maneja v. Waialua, 349 U.S. 254; Farmers Reservoir Co. v. McComb, 337 U.S. 755).

Section 13(b)(4) provides an exemption from the overtime but not from the minimum wage provisions of the Act for “any employee employed in the canning, processing, marketing, freezing, curing, storing, packing for shipment, or distributing” aquatic forms of animal and vegetable life or any byproducts thereof. Orginally, all these operations were contained in the exemption provided by section 13(a)(5) but, as a result of amendments, first “canning”, in 1949, and then the other operations in 1961, were transferred to section 13(b)(4). (See the discussion in §§ 784.102 to 784.105.) These activities are “shore” activities and in general have to do with the movement of the perishable aquatic products to a nonperishable state or to points of consumption (S. Rept. 145, 87th Cong., first session, p. 33).