Order targets treatment of film industry drivers

A New Mexico-based labor union violated federal labor law by demanding the firing of three drivers hired by a television production in 2020, a National Labor Relations Board judge ruled this month.

The firings were among several practices by International Brotherhood of Teamsters Local 492 that violated federal labor laws, Administrative Judge Dickie Montemayor ruled. He ordered the union to compensate the three drivers and other actions.

The three drivers were hired in November 2020 with the permission of a union official to work for a production company filming the sci-fi Western television series “Outer Range,” the Dec. 4 order said. The same union official later demanded the termination of the drivers.

Montemayor also found that Local 492 illegally charged “referral fees” to special equipment operators, such as food-truck drivers, without providing job referral services for those drivers.

The wide-ranging order prohibits a number of union practices and clarifies the relationship between the union and production companies that hire drivers.

The order allows certain non-union drivers to solicit work directly from production companies and prohibits the union from charging fees from non-union special equipment drivers.

The film and television industry operated 62 productions and spent an estimated $740.4 million in New Mexico in the year ending June 30, according to the New Mexico Film Office.

James Montalbano, an Albuquerque attorney representing Local 492, did not respond to messages seeking comment about the order. Local 492 President David Trujillo referred questions to a second union official who did not return phone messages.

Montemayor found that Local 492 operated an “exclusive hiring hall” that made it the sole source of referrals for production companies seeking drivers and wranglers for New Mexico film and television productions.

The production companies sign memorandums of agreement, or MOAs, with the union that allow them to access workers from the hiring hall. “By signing these MOAs the companies agree that (Local) 492 will be the exclusive source of employee referrals,” he wrote.

However, the union also maintains a second list of non-union drivers who the productions can hire when there aren’t enough union drivers available, the order said.

In November 2020, the transportation captain for the “Outer Range” production received permission from a Local 492 official to hire three non-union drivers, the order said.

About six weeks later, the captain received a call from the union official “demanding that he terminate the employees that she had previously approved to be hired,” Montemayor wrote.

The drivers were fired after the filmmakers temporarily halted production for the Christmas holiday. The transportation captain testified that employees laid off during the holiday typically were recalled after the break.

The union responded that its agreement with the production company allowed the firings because the employees had been laid off for more than three days, the order said.

Montemayor found that the union official “intruded into the employment relation and directed the termination of the employees who were working in an approved work status having committed no violation of any company rules.”

Montemayor ordered the union to provide back pay to the affected workers and to end the practices. The judge issued the order after holding a series of hearings from March 2023 to September 2024.