Employers Must Keep Deducting Union Dues After Contract Expires
On October 3, the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) issued a decision in Valley Hospital Medical Center, a case that concerned the deduction of union dues from an employee’s paycheck. The NLRB determined that employers cannot unilaterally decide to stop deducting union dues from workers’ paychecks after the workers’ collective bargaining agreement has expired.
Employers are instead required to collectively bargain on the change. Only if an impasse in negotiations is reached can the employer act on its own. This decision reinstates a 2015 Obama-era standard established in a case called Lincoln Lutheran of Racine.
Two Republican-appointed board members wrote a dissent criticizing the decision. The dissent argued that dues checkoffs are “exclusively creatures of contract, and only a mutual agreement gives rise to any obligation to maintain them.” If the contract has expired, then there would no obligation to follow the contract’s provisions.
The dissent also criticized the NLRB’s determination that the ruling would apply retroactively to other pending cases.
Click here to read the decision.