Document ID: s3://data.kl3m.ai/documents/govinfo/USCOURTS/USCOURTS-caDC-12-01002/USCOURTS-caDC-12-01002-0/pdf.json

Parties Involved:
Thomas Troy Coghill
Intervenor for Respondent
National Labor Relations Board
Respondent
Teamsters Local Union No. 509
Petitioner

Document Text:

United States Court of Appeals

FOR THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA CIRCUIT

Argued April 7, 2015 Decided August 21, 2015

No. 12-1002

TEAMSTERS LOCAL UNION NO. 509,

PETITIONER

v.

NATIONAL LABOR RELATIONS BOARD,

RESPONDENT

THOMAS TROY COGHILL,

INTERVENOR

Consolidated with 12-1103

On Petition for Review and Cross-Application 

for Enforcement of an Order of 

the National Labor Relations Board

Jonathan G. Axelrod argued the cause and filed the briefs 

for petitioner. 

Robert J. Englehart, Supervisory Attorney, National 

Labor Relations Board, argued the cause for respondent. With 

him on the brief were John H. Ferguson, Associate General 

Counsel, Linda Dreeben, Deputy Associate General Counsel, 

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and Tyler James Wiese, Attorney. Micah P. Jost, Attorney, 

entered an appearance.

W. James Young argued the cause and filed the brief for 

intervenor.

Before: ROGERS and GRIFFITH, Circuit Judges, and 

GINSBURG, Senior Circuit Judge.

Opinion for the Court filed by Circuit Judge GRIFFITH.

GRIFFITH, Circuit Judge:

The National Labor Relations Board concluded that

Teamsters Local Union No. 509 committed unfair labor 

practices by operating a hiring hall that helped only its own 

members gain employment. For the reasons set forth below, we

deny the union’s petition for review and grant the Board’s 

cross-application for enforcement.

I

A

Section 7 of the National Labor Relations Act (NLRA) 

grants employees the right to organize, collectively bargain, 

and otherwise band together for “mutual aid or protection.” 29 

U.S.C. § 157. But the Act also grants employees the right to 

refrain from doing so. Id. To enforce these rights, the Act bars 

employers and unions from conditioning employment on a 

worker’s decision to either join or refuse to join a union. See id. 

§ 158(a), (b). In other words, the NLRA “erect[s]” a “wall . . . 

between organizational rights and job opportunities.” Lummus 

Co. v. NLRB, 339 F.2d 728, 734 (D.C. Cir. 1964); see also 

Radio Officers’ Union v. NLRB, 347 U.S. 17, 40 (1954) 

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(explaining that the NLRA “allow[s] employees to freely 

exercise their right to join unions, be good, bad, or indifferent 

members, or abstain from joining any union without imperiling 

their livelihood”).

These same principles apply to hiring 

halls—union-backed organizations that refer workers to 

employers that have entered a collective bargaining agreement 

with the union. See Boilermakers Local No. 374 v. NLRB, 852 

F.2d 1353, 1358 (D.C. Cir. 1988). Hiring halls are a basic 

feature of the labor workforce, and “[i]n some industries, most 

jobs are filled through referrals from union hiring halls.” 

Hiring Halls, National Labor Relations Board, 

https://www.nlrb.gov/rights-we-protect/whats-law/employees/

i-am-represented-union/hiring-halls (last visited Aug. 21, 

2015). Hiring halls pose no problem under the NLRA so long 

as an employer is free to hire other workers without using the 

hiring hall. Exclusive hiring halls, however, create cause for 

concern. Under these arrangements, an employer agrees to hire 

only workers referred by the union running the hiring hall. 

Although not illegal per se, exclusive hiring halls are held to “a 

high standard of fair dealing” because of their potential to 

coerce workers to join the union as the price for gaining access 

to job opportunities. Boilermakers Local No. 374, 852 F.2d at 

1358. Because of this concern with workplace coercion, we 

have held that an exclusive hiring hall is lawful only if it is 

open to all potential workers, not just members of the 

sponsoring local. Id. On the other hand, an exclusive hiring hall 

limited to only the local’s members, known as a members-only 

exclusive hiring hall, is unlawful under the NLRA. See Local 

Union No. 948, Int’l Bhd. of Elec. Workers, (IBEW), AFL-CIO 

v. NLRB (Local 948), 697 F.2d 113, 116-19 (D.C. Cir. 1982)

(holding that it is unlawful coercion for an exclusive hiring hall 

to deny access to members of local unions other than the local 

operating the hiring hall).

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B

In 2006, ABC Studios began production in South Carolina 

of a television show called Army Wives.

1 Needing drivers to 

transport talent, crew, and equipment to various locations, 

ABC Transportation Coordinator Lee Siler contacted Local 

509 (the union, or the local),

2 which operated a referral service 

for drivers seeking jobs in the entertainment production 

business in South Carolina. Local 509 gave Siler a list of 

qualified drivers, all of whom were Local 509 members, and 

Siler filled his staffing needs for the pilot episode from that list. 

After the pilot was filmed but before production began on the 

first season, ABC and Local 509 negotiated a collective 

bargaining agreement for drivers working on the production of

the first two seasons of Army Wives. According to the 

agreement’s terms, ABC committed to fill its need for drivers 

by hiring only from the list of qualified drivers the local would 

provide at the beginning of each season. In other words, ABC 

agreed to hire from an exclusive hiring hall run by Local 509.

All the drivers on the list the local delivered before the first 

season were Local 509 members.

Staffing drivers for the first two seasons of Army Wives 

turned out to be difficult because of the rapid growth of 

entertainment productions in South Carolina. After hiring all 

that he could from Local 509’s list for the first season, Siler 

 1 Army Wives was a fictional drama that “follow[ed] the 

struggles, dreams and friendships of a diverse group of women—and 

one man—living with their spouses and families on an active Army 

post.” Army Wives, LIFETIME, http://www.mylifetime.com/shows/ 

army-wives (last visited Aug. 21, 2015).

2 To be clear, any reference to “the union” refers specifically to 

Teamsters Local Union No. 509 and no other local.

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looked elsewhere for help.

3 He found it in Thomas Troy

Coghill, a member of Teamsters Local Union No. 391 in North 

Carolina with whom Siler had previously worked on other 

jobs. Coghill was one of a handful of drivers who were not 

members of Local 509 but worked on Army Wives during the 

show’s first season. By all accounts, he was a reliable driver, 

and when the demand for drivers once again outstripped what 

the union could provide, Siler rehired him at the start of filming 

for the second season.

Later on during filming for the second season, two Local 

509 drivers who had worked for ABC during the first season 

asked to re-join the production. Siler hired them, but only for 

part-time work. Local 509 president L.D. Fletcher complained 

that drivers in his local should receive full-time work before 

nonmembers like Coghill. When Siler refused to replace 

drivers who did not belong to Local 509 with drivers who did, 

Fletcher complained to ABC’s attorney, who scheduled a 

meeting with the local and relevant production personnel to 

discuss the disagreement on May 13, 2008. At that meeting,

Fletcher repeated his complaint, threatened that Local 509 

members would picket the filming of Army Wives if his 

members did not receive full-time work before others, and 

boasted that he could and would shut down the entire 

production if his demand was not met. ABC nevertheless

continued to employ Coghill throughout the filming of the 

second season.

In June 2008, while filming for the second season was still 

under way, Local 509 closed its referral list, meaning that no 

 3 The union does not argue before us that ABC violated the 

collective bargaining agreement by hiring drivers who were not on 

the referral list after Siler hired all that he could from the list.

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new drivers could have their names added to it.4 By the time 

filming was completed in the fall of 2008, Coghill and three 

specialty drivers whose jobs included tasks no one in the local 

was qualified to perform were the only drivers working on 

Army Wives who did not belong to Local 509 and were not on 

the referral list. In light of Fletcher’s demand, Siler told Coghill 

after the season ended that he should move to South Carolina 

and join Local 509 if he wanted to work on future seasons of 

the show. In November 2008, Coghill wrote to both his local in 

North Carolina and Local 509 to report that he planned to move

to Charleston, South Carolina, and that he wanted to transfer

his membership to Local 509. Fletcher told Coghill in a 

telephone conversation that the referral list was closed, but

Coghill sent an application to Local 509 along with a check for

initiation and administrative fees in January 2009, hoping to 

join a waitlist. The union returned the application and check at 

the end of the month along with a letter explaining that no 

names were being added to the referral list.

In early 2009, Local 509 and ABC negotiated another

collective bargaining agreement, this one governing the third 

and fourth seasons of Army Wives. Like the contract that 

governed the previous seasons, this agreement included a 

provision requiring the studio to hire drivers from Local 509’s

referral list before hiring others, thus continuing the exclusive 

hiring hall. And as before, the list of drivers Local 509 gave 

Siler before the third season included only its own members. 

But the economics of the industry in South Carolina had 

changed since season two, and a number of productions had 

wound down. In the previous seasons, the studio’s need for 

 4 Local 509’s Executive Board agreed to an exception that 

allowed drivers who had previously been on the list to seek 

reinstatement if they became current in dues or administrative fees. 

That exception is not relevant here.

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drivers outpaced what the local could supply, but now there 

were more than enough drivers on the local’s list to satisfy 

ABC’s staffing needs for the third season. Because Coghill was 

not on the list, Siler did not hire him for the third season.5 Both 

Siler and his boss later testified that they would have hired 

Coghill had he been on the list.

C

Coghill filed an unfair labor practice charge against Local 

509 with the NLRB Regional Director whose jurisdiction

covered South Carolina, and the NLRB General Counsel

followed up with a complaint on February 9, 2009. The 

complaint accused Local 509 of coercing workers into joining 

the local by referring only its own members to ABC, in 

violation of section 8(b)(1)(A) of the NLRA.

6 The complaint 

also accused Local 509 of causing ABC to refuse to hire 

Coghill because he did not belong to the local, in violation of 

section 8(b)(2).

7

 5 In an effort to mitigate potential damages, Local 509 added 

Coghill to its referral list for the fourth season of Army Wives after 

the NLRB General Counsel issued the complaint in this case. ABC 

then hired him off the list. 6 Section 8(b)(1)(A) of the NLRA makes it an unfair labor 

practice for a union “to restrain or coerce . . . employees in the 

exercise of the rights guaranteed” in section 7 of the Act, which 

includes “the right to refrain from” joining a union. 29 U.S.C. 

§ 158(b)(1); id. § 157.

7 Section 8(b)(2) prohibits a union from causing an employer to 

condition employment on whether a worker is a union member. See 

29 U.S.C. § 158(b)(2), (a)(3). We have held that this section 

prohibits locals from causing an employer to refuse to hire a member 

of a different local. See Local 948, 697 F.2d at 116-19.

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After a February 23, 2010, hearing before an 

Administrative Law Judge (ALJ), the General Counsel sought

to amend the complaint to accuse Local 509 of committing an 

additional unfair labor practice by closing the referral list in

June 2008. 8 The ALJ refused to consider the amendment, 

concluding that Local 509 lacked notice that it might face 

liability for closing the list. See ALJ’s Decision and Order, 

Int’l Bhd. of Teamsters, Local 509 (ALJ Decision), Docket No. 

11-CB-4020, at 9 (Dep’t of Labor Mar. 9, 2011). Because he 

had declined to permit the amendment, the ALJ expressly 

declined to determine whether closing the list was in fact 

unlawful but went on to find that Local 509 was operating a 

members-only exclusive hiring hall that discriminated against 

Coghill because he did not belong to the local. Id. at 8-9. That 

led the ALJ to conclude that Local 509 had committed two 

unfair labor practices. First, by refusing to place Coghill on its 

list and refusing to refer him for employment, the local had 

effectively punished him for failing to join its ranks, in 

violation of section 8(b)(1)(A). ALJ Decision at 9-10. Second, 

the local had also caused ABC to refuse to hire Coghill because 

he did not belong to Local 509, in violation of section 8(b)(2). 

ALJ Decision at 9-10. The ALJ also found that ABC would 

have hired Coghill to work on season three of Army Wives if

not for Local 509’s demand that the studio hire only its 

members. Id. at 9. As a result, the ALJ granted Coghill 

backpay, ordered the local to open its referral list to workers 

who did not belong to Local 509, and required the local to post 

a notice disclosing its violations. Id. at 12-13.

Local 509 appealed the ALJ’s decision to the NLRB. On 

appeal, the local argued that the only reason it did not refer 

Coghill to ABC in November 2008 was that it had previously

 8 The Board has not explained to us its theory of how closing the 

list may have violated the NLRA.

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closed its referral list in June 2008, an act the ALJ had refused 

to find unlawful. The Board rejected that defense and instead 

affirmed the ALJ’s “rulings, findings, and conclusions” and 

adopted his proposed order. Int’l Bhd. of Teamsters, Local 509 

(ABC Studios), 357 N.L.R.B. No. 138, 1 (Dec. 13, 2011). The 

Board concluded that “[t]he manner in which [Local 509] 

maintained the list was itself unlawful and discriminatory. . . . 

[C]losing the list . . . merely perpetuated the unlawful effect of 

its prior maintenance of a members-only, exclusive hiring 

hall.” Id. Of special significance to this petition, the Board 

further explained that “regardless of whether the list was open 

or closed, the [local] would not have placed Coghill, a 

nonmember, on the list or referred him for employment.” Id.

Local 509 timely petitioned for review of the Board’s 

decision, and the Board cross-applied to seek enforcement of 

its order. We have jurisdiction under 29 U.S.C. § 160(e), (f).

II

Local 509 presents three arguments. First, the union 

claims that the Board violated its own regulations and denied 

the union due process by concluding that the closure of the 

referral list was unlawful. Second, the union alleges that the 

Board impermissibly held it liable for events that fell outside of 

the NLRA’s statute of limitations. Lastly, the union argues that 

substantial evidence does not support the Board’s conclusions

that the union was operating a members-only exclusive hiring 

hall before it decided to close its list and that the union would 

have refused to place Coghill on the list had it remained open. 

We reject each argument in turn and uphold the Board’s 

decision.

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A

After the hearing before the ALJ concluded, the General 

Counsel sought to amend the complaint to charge Local 509

with an unfair labor practice for closing its referral list. The 

ALJ refused the amendment, reasoning that assigning liability 

based on the new proposed charge would deprive Local 509 of 

due process because the union did not have the opportunity to 

litigate the issue at the hearing. The General Counsel did not 

appeal that finding to the Board. Before us, Local 509 argues 

that the Board’s final decision created precisely the due 

process violation that the ALJ sought to avoid. The union 

argues that the Board held it liable for closing the referral list, 

even though the parties never litigated whether that act violated 

the NLRA. As evidence of this error, the union points to the 

Board’s statement that “closing the list . . . merely perpetuated 

the unlawful effect of its prior maintenance of a members-only, 

exclusive hiring hall.” To the union, this statement indicates 

that the Board found the act of closing the list unlawful. As a 

result, the union contends that it was deprived due process for 

the very reasons that the ALJ rejected the General Counsel’s 

proposed amendment. The union also complains that the 

Board’s decision implicitly reversed the ALJ’s refusal to 

amend the complaint even though the Board’s regulations 

forbid it from considering any issue not appealed by a party, 

see 29 C.F.R. § 102.46(g) (“No matter not included in 

exceptions or cross-exceptions may thereafter be urged before 

the Board, or in any further proceeding.”).

The union’s argument misreads what the Board actually 

did. Rather than holding the union liable for closing the list in 

June 2008, the Board found that the union violated the Act “by 

failing to place Coghill on its referral list for arbitrary, 

discriminatory, and invidious reasons and thereafter by failing 

to refer him for employment” and by “causing [ABC] to 

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discriminate against Coghill by not hiring him to work for 

season three of Army Wives because he was not a member of 

[Local 509].” Local 509, 357 N.L.R.B. No. 138 at 1. The 

union’s decision to close the list was at issue because the union 

relied upon it as a defense. The Board rejected that defense and 

concluded the closure of the list was irrelevant to its finding 

that Local 509 had committed unfair labor practices when it 

refused to refer Coghill for employment and caused ABC not 

to hire him for the third season of Army Wives. As the Board 

stated clearly in reaching its conclusion, “whether the list was 

open or closed, the [union] would not have placed Coghill, a 

nonmember, on the list or referred him for employment.” Id.

(emphasis added). This finding was consistent with the ALJ’s 

determination that Local 509 was operating a members-only

exclusive hiring hall at the time it refused to refer Coghill for 

employment. See ALJ Decision at 8-9. The ALJ, like the 

Board, believed that the union’s refusal to refer Coghill for 

employment had nothing to do with the list being closed and 

everything to do with the fact that Coghill did not belong to

Local 509. Stated simply: The premise of the union’s due 

process argument is mistaken because the Board did not find it 

liable for closing the list. We need not consider the argument 

any further.

B

Local 509 argues that the NLRA’s six-month statute of 

limitations, see 29 U.S.C. § 160(b), bars the Board from 

charging it with unfair labor practices for refusing to refer 

Coghill to ABC and causing the studio not to hire him because 

those acts were allegedly inseparable from the act of closing 

the list. The union relies upon the Supreme Court’s decision in 

Local Lodge No. 1424 v. NLRB (Bryan Manufacturing), which 

held that the NLRA’s statute of limitations prevents the Board 

from holding a party liable for conduct “inescapably grounded 

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on events” that fell beyond the statute’s horizon. 362 U.S. 411, 

422 (1960). 

Local 509 acknowledges, as it must, that its November 

2008 refusal to refer Coghill to ABC occurred within six 

months of when the General Counsel levied charges in 

February 2009 based on that conduct. But the union argues that 

the statute of limitations nonetheless immunizes it from 

liability here because its November 2008 actions were 

“inescapably grounded” on its closing of the list, which took 

place in June 2008—more than six months before the charges. 

As the union sees it, refusing to refer Coghill to ABC was not 

illegal unless closing the list was illegal. The union asks us, in 

other words, to deny the Board the authority to bring a charge 

based on conduct that clearly took place within the limitations 

period because that conduct was too intertwined with conduct 

that took place outside of it.

But even assuming that Bryan Manufacturing stands for 

such a sweeping exception to the statute of limitations, it still 

would not help the union here. The union’s argument depends 

on the assumption that its refusal to refer Coghill to ABC in 

November 2008 was inseparable from the June 2008 closing of 

the list. But the two acts are separable. The Board clearly 

explained its belief that the list simply had nothing to do with 

Local 509’s actions in November 2008. See Local 509, 357 

N.L.R.B. No. 138 at 1 (“[R]egardless of whether the list was 

open or closed, the [union] would not have placed Coghill, a 

nonmember, on the list or referred him for employment.”). As 

the Board saw it, Local 509 did not refer Coghill to ABC 

because he was not a Local 509 member. Whether the list was 

open, unlawfully closed, or lawfully closed was beside the 

point. The Board’s conclusion was thus not “inescapably 

grounded on events predating the limitations period,” Bryan 

Manufacturing, 362 U.S. at 422, but instead was expressly 

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grounded on distinct events that inarguably fell within that 

period. Nor does it matter that the Board referenced actions 

that occurred outside the limitations window, such as “[t]he 

manner in which the [union] maintained the list.” Local 509, 

357 N.L.R.B. No. 138 at 1. As the Board points out, it may rely 

upon earlier events to “illuminate” why the union refused to 

refer Coghill in November 2008. See Bryan Manufacturing, 

362 U.S. at 416 (“[W]here occurrences within the six-month 

limitations period in and of themselves may constitute, as a 

substantive matter, unfair labor practices . . . earlier events 

may be utilized to shed light on the true character of matters 

occurring within the limitations period.”). Because the Board 

held Local 509 liable only for conduct that occurred within six 

months of when the General Counsel brought charges, we hold 

that the Board’s decision did not violate the NLRA’s statute of 

limitations.

C

Finally, Local 509 claims that substantial evidence does 

not support the Board’s conclusions that the union ran a 

members-only exclusive hiring hall and that the union would 

not have placed Coghill on the referral list had it remained 

open. “[O]ur role in reviewing an NLRB decision is limited. 

We must uphold the judgment of the Board unless, upon 

reviewing the record as a whole, we conclude that the Board’s 

findings are not supported by substantial evidence . . . .”

Wayneview Care Ctr. v. NLRB, 664 F.3d 341, 348 (D.C. Cir. 

2011) (internal quotation marks and citation omitted). 

The Board’s determination comfortably meets this 

standard. The record is filled with evidence suggesting that 

Local 509 was managing an exclusive hiring hall open only to 

its members and that it refused to refer Coghill for employment

because he was not.

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There is no dispute that only Local 509 members were on 

the list at the time it closed. Indeed, the union freely admits that 

“persons wanting to go on the [referral list] were sent 

applications [that] included a membership application and a 

request for an initiation fee” and that “[p]ersons who applied to 

become members were added to the [l]ist.” Appellant’s Br. 32. 

Additionally, the union has identified only one worker who 

was not a Local 509 member but who nevertheless was placed 

on the list during the first two seasons of Army Wives. The 

record reveals that this driver applied to join the union in 2006, 

and there is no evidence that she was on the list before then. 

What’s more, that driver did join the union after being placed 

on the list, and the Board could infer that her addition was 

conditioned on her eventual membership. And finally, the 

union’s referral policy, which described how the union 

managed the list, referred to names of drivers hired from the 

list not as “drivers” or “workers” but as “members.” J.A. 

535-36. The Board could reasonably conclude from all of this 

evidence that the only way to gain access to Local 509’s 

exclusive hiring hall was to be a member of Local 509 or agree 

to become one. That is illegal.

The behavior of Fletcher, Local 509’s president, also 

supports the Board’s conclusion that the union unlawfully used 

the list to help only its members secure employment. When 

Fletcher discovered that Coghill was working full-time on 

Army Wives at the same time that Local 509 union members 

were working part-time, he called Siler to complain. He 

protested that “our people” were not working full-time and 

warned Siler and his supervisor that they must use Local 509 

members “before using people out of jurisdiction.” Fletcher 

raised the same complaint at the May 13, 2008, meeting with 

ABC, objecting that Siler was using drivers from other local 

unions “while our people [are] not working.” He declared

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“that’s not going to happen.” Most tellingly, Fletcher said at 

the meeting that he would drop his complaint against ABC if

Siler would “get rid of other people and work [Local] 509 

people.”

In sum, substantial evidence supports the Board’s 

conclusions that Local 509’s referral list was open only to its 

members, that Local 509 refused to refer Coghill for 

employment because he was not a member, and that the union 

would not have added Coghill to its list even it had remained 

open because he was not a member.

III

For the foregoing reasons, we deny Local 509’s petition 

for review and grant the Board’s cross-application for 

enforcement of its order. 

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