NLRB returns to permitting employers to cease dues check-off collections during negotiations

Reversing its Obama-era decision, the Board has returned to its longstanding precedent of permitting employers to stop withholding dues, even as may have been required by a dues check-off clause in a collective bargaining agreement, once that agreement expires and the parties enter renewal negotiations.

In sum, we find that a dues-checkoff provision properly belongs to the limited category of mandatory bargaining subjects that are exclusively created by the contract and are enforceable through Section 8(a)(5) of the Act only for the duration of the contractual obligation created by the parties. There is no independent statutory obligation to check off and remit dues after expiration of a collective-bargaining agreement containing a checkoff provision, just as no such statutory obligation exists before parties enter into such an agreement. This holding and rationale apply even in the absence of a union-security provision in the same contract. Because we find that it would not be unjust to follow our normal approach when overruling precedent, we will apply our holding retroactively in this case and in other pending cases. We therefore find that the Respondent had no obligation under the Act to continue dues checkoff after the contract expired.

Source: Valley Hospital Medical Center, Inc. d/b/a Valley Hospital Medical Center, 368 NLRB No. 139 (2019).

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