NLRB Revisits Union Dues Checkoff Rule

The constant fluctuations in precedent at the Nationwide Labor Relations Board (“NLRB” or the “Board”) carry on as the Board overrules an additional case made the decision underneath the Trump Administration. This time the NLRB has established its sights on the assortment of union dues following the expiration of a collective bargaining arrangement. On Oct 3, 2022, the Board issued its conclusion in Valley Hospital Medical Heart, Inc. d/b/a Valley Clinic Healthcare Heart and Nearby Joint Govt Board of Las Vegas (available below) overruling the 2019 case of the same identify.

The Board’s Shifting Requirements With Regard to Dues Checkoff Next Contract Expiration

A dues checkoff arrangement is just one where the worker authorizes their employer to deduct union dues from his or her wages and remit them to the union.

Although Segment 8(d) of the Nationwide Labor Relations Act generally prohibits employers from unilaterally transforming the terms and problems of work without bargaining with the union, the Board has historically held that an exception existed for dues checkoff preparations subsequent the expiration of a collective bargaining settlement. For decades next its decision in Bethlehem Metal, 136 NLRB 1500 (1962), the NLRB held that dues checkoff arrangements, related to provisions these types of as administration rights clauses and no-strike clauses, turn into unenforceable when a collective bargaining agreement expires.

In 2015, the Board reversed program holding that dues checkoff provisions had been subject to the statutory bargaining necessity to keep the position quo soon after a deal expires. Lincoln Lutheran of Racine, 362 NLRB 1655 (2015). Then, in 2019, the Board restored its longstanding rule that union dues checkoff provisions expire with the collective bargaining arrangement. Valley Healthcare facility Healthcare Centre, Inc. d/b/a Valley Healthcare facility Health-related Center, 368 NLRB No. 139 (2019).

Valley Medical center II

Several years of litigation ahead of the NLRB resulted in a 2021 choice by the Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit that remanded the scenario back again to the Board “so that it may have an prospect to give an satisfactory rationalization for its solution to dues checkoff by explicitly addressing the precedents cited by the Union that appear to contradict the ‘contract-creation’ rationale applied in this situation.”

On remand, the Board reversed its 2019 choice keeping that “a dues-checkoff provision appropriately and reasonably belongs in the wide group of mandatory bargaining subjects that Section 8(a)(5) of the Act bars companies from changing unilaterally after the expiration of a deal, somewhat than in the little handful of exceptions to the rule.” Members Ring and Kaplan dissented concluding the termination of dues-checkoff provisions . . . has been a authentic economic weapon.” The NLRB also held that this decision would utilize retroactively to all pending circumstances.

Crucial Takeaways

This choice signifies a further stage this Board has taken in guidance of President Biden’s pro-labor agenda. Employers have dropped an economic tool that could have been utilised to persuade a union to enter into a new or successor agreement.

Perhaps much more importantly, this determination underscores the volatility at the Board. For practically fifty years, with the exception of the momentary deviation in between 2015 and 2020, companies, staff and unions could rely on the Board’s stance pertaining to dues checkoff provisions remaining secure and plan accordingly. With the swift, drastic shifts between expectations at the Board, impacted functions may well not be capable to rely on the relative stability of certain precedents.

Developments at the NLRB are very likely to carry on at a immediate pace, we will keep track of developments in this space and supply updates when suitable.