National Labor Relations Board settlement pulls back curtain on pervasive discriminatory practices among entertainment industry unions

New York, NY (November 2, 2022) – New York-based movie production electrician James Harker has scored a victory against International Alliance of Theatrical Stage Employees (IATSE) Local 52 union officials, who have been unlawfully denying jobs to non-union film industry workers. With free legal assistance from the National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation, Harker has won a settlement requiring IATSE Local 52 officials to stop a series of discriminatory practices designed by union officials to sideline nonmembers in favor of union members.

IATSE Local 52, based in New York City, has monopoly bargaining agreements with film production companies that give it control over movie, television, and commercial shoots in New York, New Jersey, Connecticut, and parts of Pennsylvania and Delaware. Harker filed these NLRB charges against IATSE Local 52 in March 2021 and January 2022.

National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) Region 29 has agreed that many of the practices cited in Harker’s charges violate the law. The NLRB issued a complaint in May 2022 against the union, which is the NLRB’s formal step towards prosecuting infringements of federal law before an NLRB Administrative Law Judge.

The complaint, issued by the NLRB Regional Director, stated that IATSE union officials had broken federal law by forbidding production companies to hire nonmembers without permission from union bosses, forcing nonmembers to go through the union to apply for jobs, requiring union members with hiring authority to exhaust all union member hiring options before hiring nonmembers, and more.

Most notably, IATSE union officials facilitated a practice called “bumping,” in which the union required employers to release from work any crewmembers on a film shoot who were not members of the union when a union member became available to work and wanted that position. The complaint says that this and other practices violate employees’ rights to refrain from all union activity and causes “employers to discriminate against employees,” both of which are prohibited by the National Labor Relations Act (NLRA).

Settlement Requires IATSE Bosses to Stop Letting Members Kick Nonmembers Off Jobs

Now, to stop the case from proceeding to trial, IATSE Local 52 union officials have entered into an NLRB settlement that includes requirements that they cease these illegal activities and notify workers of the rights the union’s practices infringed on. The settlement vindicates Harker, who filed the charges after seeing the ongoing illegal practices harm fellow production workers.

The settlement orders IATSE Local 52 to comply with a number of requirements, including that union bosses will no longer “require nonmember…employees to obtain work through the Union,” “will not interfere with employers and their agents hiring nonmembers without first obtaining approval from the Union,” and “will not require employers to allow members to bump nonmembers off of productions because of the nonmembers’ lack of membership with the Union.”

IATSE union officials are required to disseminate the settlement notice to union members and nonmembers under the union’s control, as well as to production companies. The settlement notice must also appear in IATSE Local 52’s newsletter, and IATSE union officials are ordered to attend mandatory training on employee rights and hiring procedures.

“IATSE union officials’ scheme to keep nonmember production workers off the job is a classic example of union officials prioritizing power and control over workers’ individual rights,” commented National Right to Work Foundation President Mark Mix. “The Foundation was proud to back Mr. Harker, who recognized the patent injustice of this arrangement.”

“Film crew members who have exercised their right not to affiliate with a union should know that they can’t be required to go through union officials to look for work, and can’t be ‘bumped’ off a job just so a union member can get it,” Mix added. “Unfortunately, Foundation attorneys’ experience is that these types of unlawful schemes are ubiquitous in the entertainment industry, where near-total union boss control combined with the fear of union retaliation keeps most victims too scared to defend their rights.”

The National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation is a nonprofit, charitable organization providing free legal aid to employees whose human or civil rights have been violated by compulsory unionism abuses. The Foundation, which can be contacted toll-free at 1-800-336-3600, assists thousands of employees in about 200 cases nationwide per year.