Stuart wins court okay to pursue Local 727 law suit

The lawsuit filed on behalf of Teamster 727 member Anne Stuart, a commercial driver, charging the union with sex discriminationis back in the game after a judge tossed her lawsuit out of court last March.

Severely critical of the judge who dismissed her case, a three-judge panel of the Seventh U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled on Nov. 14 that Stuart can continue to pursue her claim in court that the Teamsters did not refer her for driver jobs on movie and television productions because she’s a woman.

Stuart’s attorney, Jeffrey Cummings, of law firm Miner, Barnhill & Galland, employment and civil rights specialists, filed Stuart’s complaint Dec. 27, 2013 against Local 727, International Brotherhood of Teamsters, in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Illinois.

Stuart charges that Local 727’s alleged sex discrimination violates Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964.  She seeks fair treatment, back pay and other relief. 

Stuart’s case went to the Court of Appeals after Judge Milton I. Shadur abruptly dismissed the suit “with prejudice,” according to the Appeals panel. In reversing that dismissal, they severely criticized Shadur for either misinterpreting or misunderstanding key elements of the case and the law. 

A 70-year tradition of all-male drivers

In 2010, Stuart, a licensed commercial driver, had paid her membership dues and joined Local 727. In the nearly five years since, however, she has never gotten a chance to work as a driver in the higher paying, more active realm of film/TV production through Teamster Local 727’s Movie/Trade Show Division (MTSD). 

The reason: they didn’t refer women.

Drivers are hired by a cadre of male Transportation Coordinators (TC). They had been dues paying Teamsters members until 2010, when the union changed its operations.  While they cannot be Teamsters’ members, they do, however, pay “service fees” to the union.

The show producer, through its male TC, hires drivers from a preferred all-male group of MTSD members.  In fact, at no time in the MTSD’s 70 years of operation has a woman been hired for film jobs.

There are no public announcements for this division; it’s done word-of-mouth through the closed, all-male system. The process starts with the candidate completing an eligibility application, followed by a referral to the TCs for listing — a typical case of “we don’t want nobody nobody sent.”

Court ruled the union decides who’s hired for movies

Unaware of the female lockout, Stuart was given an application only after she said she learned about the job through a powerful Local 727 male member. She was consistently rebuffed whenever she sought an update on her job-seeking status. 

In response to Stuart’s claim, Local 727 disavowed discrimination, saying that the production companies directly hire the drivers, not them.

The Court of Appeals didn’t buy Local 727’s excuse.  It observed that the Transportation Coordinators “remain tightly linked” to Local 727 “[s]o in effect it’s the union that determines who shall be hired to drive for movie and television productions in the Chicago area.”

Years earlier when Stuart attempted to become a member of the MTSD, another powerful Local 727 man told her, “You know your stuff, but if we let you in, they would have to let in everyone’s wife, sister, and daughter who can’t do the job.”